


we tried the world; good god it wasn’t for us

by OnceAndFloral



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Coercion, Crimes, Demon Summoning AU, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sex, Lovecraftian Elements, The major character death thing isn't permanent, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, it's all fun and games until you actually summon a demon, nonbinary characters - Freeform, short break for romcom antics, so many crimes, this is the mechanisms after all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 28,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23070493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnceAndFloral/pseuds/OnceAndFloral
Summary: Sometimes your friend finds an old book full of magic spells while at her job at the library. Sometimes you decide to host a demon summoning party with said books because it might be fun. Sometimes the spell actually works, and a demon shows up and starts tearing your entire life apart.
Relationships: I can't fit the tag with all their names in just know that they're all one big polycule, polymechs
Comments: 106
Kudos: 216





	1. Chapter 1

Marius stood back, tapping his finger to his chin as he observed the scene before him.

“This snack table is pathetic,” He finally said. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring enough chips?” Ashes put down a box of Oreos next to the meager assortment of snacks already on the table. “I can’t take too much stuff from the pantry or the owner will get mad at me.”

“This is a pretty shitty house sitting job if you can’t even eat all their stuff.”

“Well, I’m also not supposed to have people over, so I’m already sticking my neck out for your dumb demon party.”

“Our demon party is _not_ dumb!”

Raphaella walked in and dropped a bag on the ground. “I brought the candles! Does the color matter?”

“I think Ivy said that we need at least one red one.”

“Oh, good, because I brought a rainbow.” She pulled an array of colorful candles from the bag. “I thought it would be fun!”

Marius went over to the couch and dropped down next to where Tim had draped himself upside down over back as he browsed on his phone.

“What are we waiting for again?” He asked.

“Jonny is driving Brian and Ivy over right now,” Marius answered. “She’s the one with the book, so we can’t get started until they get here.”

Tim hummed, squinting at something on his phone before sighing and dropping it to the floor. “This is so _boring.”_

“You didn’t have to come, you know.”

“I unfortunately did not have the proper foresight to make more friends other than this group of losers, so it’s do this or stay home alone on a Saturday night and I’m _really_ not feeling that.”

“You’re so kind to us.”

“Thank you, I do try.”

It took another fifteen minutes for the others to show up, during which Marius had taken to braiding sections of Tim’s hair. Jonny practically kicked the door down when he arrived, much to Brian’s chagrin. Ivy, as usual, seemed unfazed.

“Sorry we’re late, Brian made me stop to help some random lady.”

“She was lost!” Brian defended. “I was just giving her directions!”

“Well that was a her problem, not an us problem.”

“Do you have the book?” Raphaella asked.

Ivy patted the satchel at her side and nodded. “Are you guys sure this is a good idea?”

“Oh, come off it, Ivy, we’re just having some fun.” Jonny plucked one of the candles out of Raphaella’s hands. “It’s not like it’s real anyways. It’s just some bullshit someone pulled out of their ass and wrote in a book.”

“Then why are we doing it?”

He raised his hands in a little jazz hands gesture. “The aesthetic. Plus, what’s life if you don’t tempt the fates once in a while?”

“Can we just hurry up and get this done so I can eat that box of Oreos?” Marius piped up. 

“I second the motion.” Ashes raised their hand.

“Fine, fine. You guys don’t know how to savor things. Ivy?”

She pulled an old, dusty book from her satchel, flipping it open to a page marked with a bright pink sticky note. “Alright. We all need to hold a candle and stand in a circle, except the incantation reader. The reader lights all the other candles, starting with the red one and moving counter clockwise, and then begins the conjuration.”

“I vote Jonny reads the magic shit,” Tim chimed in.

“Aw, are you scared you’ll mess up the words?”

“No, I just think it’ll be fun to watch _you_ fuck it up.”

Raphaella started passing out candles to everyone while Ivy reviewed the incantation with Jonny. She paused for a moment when she got to Ashes.

“This isn’t going to be another February incident, is it?”

Ashes snatched the candle away from her. “That was _one_ time.”

“Okay, okay, just checking!” Raph held up her hands and backed away to her place in the circle.

Finally, they were all standing at their places, with Jonny holding the book and a lit candle at the center. The lighting ceremony proceeded in silence, though whether it was from nerves or dedication was beyond Marius’ guess. He just stood there with a green candle in hand, meeting Jonny’s eyes for a split second as he lit it.

When it was all done, he returned to his place in the middle of the circle. Jonny hefted up the book in his arms, and began to read.

“Aliquam libero turpis, rhoncus vel sodales quis, porttitor vel risus,” Jonny frowned, stumbling over some of the words. It was understandable. Even as the most composed speaker of the group, the language of this incantation was insane. “Nam dolor enim, iaculis vitae fringilla et, ultrices a leo. Aliquam erat volutpat.”

A gust of wind swept through the room. Marius quickly held up his hand to protect the flame from going out. Across the way, Brian was starting to look a little queasy.

“Morbi at justo urna. Integer sollicitudin massa a tellus porta, ac rutrum nulla venenatis.” Jonny sounded much more confident now. He was no longer flubbing words, now reciting them in one fluid breath.

Marius realized he was digging his nails into the wax of the candle. The more he thought about it, the more everything felt wrong. Some tone was vibrating so low that Marius couldn’t hear it but he could tell it was there because it set his teeth on edge. 

Ivy seemed to feel it too. “Jonny-”

“Fusce auctor sapien sed urna aliquet suscipit.” If Jonny could hear her, he didn’t acknowledge it. Just plowed forward with the incantation. “Quisque imperdiet metus facilisis, blandit eros sit amet, finibus ante.”

“Jonny, something is wrong,” Ashes spoke up. “You need to stop.”

“Praesent metus sem, consectetur sed efficitur sit amet, fringilla ac massa. Praesent ut suscipit neque.” Black veins started to form around Jonny’s eyes, traveling further with each word he spoke. 

Marius knew he had to drop the candle. The ritual would stop if he just fucking dropped it, but his nails stayed dug into the wax, his fingers locked around it. No one else dropped their candle either.

“Proin feugiat at orci nec suscipit! Praesent semper placerat interdum!” He was shouting now. The room was filled with a rattling sound as all the furniture shook against the wooden floor. It _hurt_ to hear Jonny’s voice. Each word was a nail pounded into Marius’ head. He could wince, but it was never enough to _drop the fucking candle_. “Integer sit amet dolor porta, ornare tellus vehicula, venenatis eros!”

“Fucking _stop_ you idiot!” Marius yelled. 

Jonny looked up from the book and locked eyes with Marius. His mouth was stretched into a wild grin, those black veins underlining his eyes for a hollow kind of look. But for just a split second, Marius could see the absolute terror deep in his eyes. Jonny took a deep breath and then…

_"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit!”_

The bulbs of the faux chandelier above them burst, raining shards of glass down on their heads as the candles finally all flickered out at once. The room was plunged into darkness. Marius heard a _thump_ of someone collapsing to the ground.

“Is everyone okay?” Brian’s voice called.

“I can't fucking see anything so that's not very cool,” Tim replied. 

“Well, nobody move for now, the glass might hurt someone.” 

“Fine. Hey, Jonny, quick question; what the fuck?”

There was no verbal response. Only the faint, subtle noise of crunching glass. 

“Jonny?” Raphaella called.

Somebody (Marius would not be admitting later that it was him) shrieked as flames sparked to life in the sockets of the chandelier. That could not be good for the wiring. Standing below it was a woman that had most _definitely_ not invited to the party, eyes closed as though she was listening for something. Jonny was on his hands and knees at her feet, staring at the blood pooling around his hands.

Shit.

She tilted her head to the side in a stretch, the bones in her neck making an awful cracking sound. “Ah, it’s so nice to finally be back in the mortal realm.” Her eyes opened and her gaze swept over the seven of them. “You must be the ones I have to thank.”

She kicked Jonny in the stomach with enough force that it sent him skidding across the ground to the circle. Brian kneeled down and hauled Jonny up to his feet. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Marius was too _scared_ to do anything.

But Tim. Oh, dear, brave, debatably stupid Tim was never one for inaction.

“That’s a real shitty thank you,” He snapped.

The demon turned around to face him, her movements so slow they were almost imperceptible until she was already facing him. She walked towards him but Tim just stood there, why wasn’t he doing anything, didn’t he have a plan?

Tim’s hand shot for his pocket, quick as anything, but still not fast enough. Her hand was already around his throat, fingers digging in until the skin punctured underneath her nails. Tim’s eyes were wide as her fingers sunk deeper and deeper into his neck and Marius knew he was dying, drowning in his own blood and-

She pulled back her hand and Tim crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Raphaella tear her eyes away from the grisly scene, but Marius couldn’t stop staring at Tim’s body. He was _dead_. The demon leaned over and picked up the pocket knife Tim always kept with him.

“You see why I had to do that, right?” Her eyes swept over the remaining six of them. “He was going to hurt me. That was out of self defense.”

“You killed him,” Ivy whispered.

“Oh, he was going to die soon enough anyways,” She replied flippantly. “Your lifespans are just so terribly short as it is.”

Do something, do something, _do something,_ Marius chanted to himself. She was going to kill all of them one by one unless he fucking did something. He had to stop thinking about this so hard and just act, god dammit.

Marius grabbed one of the liters of soda from the snack table behind him and chucked it at the chandelier. Once again all the lights went out as it crashed to the ground. He couldn’t see anything, but he heard the rapid footsteps as everyone else bolted from the room.

He didn’t have very much time to celebrate his victory though. Burning hands grabbed him by the wrist and threw him into the table. 

“That wasn’t very smart, Byron,” the demon whispered. “You’re truly making things inconvenient for me.”

Something hit his head, and Marius didn’t remember what happened next.


	2. Chapter 2

“This was supposed to be a fun party, this was supposed to be a fun party, this was supposed to be-”

“Brian, shut the _fuck_ up,” Jonny hissed. Hiding in a tiny closet barely big enough for one person, let alone two grown men, was not his idea of a fun party either, but getting killed by the demon lurking out in the house was even less fun, and Brian was going to give them away.

“We just left the others out there, we have to go back!”

“They’re either going to be fine, or they’re already dead, and there’s not much we can do either way.” Jonny closed his eyes and rested his head against the back wall. Fuck, his whole body hurt so much. It turned out collapsing onto a bunch of broken glass didn’t feel very good.

“That’s-!”

“Brian, please.” He dug his nails into the floorboards. “I'm bleeding, some ribs might be broken, and I'm having a little bit of a hard time processing that the demon we summoned for shits and giggles is real. I don't even have the ability to get up and trek through this stupid house and look for people if I wanted to.”

There was a long lapse of silence. “She killed Tim.”

“Yea, I know. I know, Brian, I fucking _know.”_ Why hadn't he just stopped saying that stupid incantation? He felt how wrong it had been at the time but also… It felt like he couldn't stop. Like that had been the thing he was born to do. 

“If we don't survive...”

“Christ, Brian, don't say that.”

“But it's important. I need you to know that I-”

Brian finally shut his mouth as the bedroom door creaked open. Footsteps padded against the soft carpet, getting closer and closer. Jonny wrapped his fingers around Brian’s wrist, squeezing tighter and tighter as if this would protect the both of them from getting swept away.

Such a long time passed where nothing happened. Jonny even convinced himself that she hadn't seen them. She was just about to leave, and all he had to do was hold his breath.

The wooden door of the closet suddenly splintered with a loud crack! Brian, ever the hero, threw the arm Jonny wasn’t currently holding in a death grip in front of him, even as he flinched. This was not how Jonny wanted to die.

The demon they had summoned downstairs smiled down at them, fangs glinting in the street light filtering in through the window behind her. “I thought I would find you two here.”

Jonny grabbed the nearest object and flung a stiletto heel right at her face.

She easily batted it away. The smile shifted into a frown. “Oh, honestly, Jonathan, was that really necessary?”

“Fuck you!”

She rolled her eyes and yanked Jonny up to his feet by his shoulder. An involuntary gasp slipped past his lips as the pain in his ribs flared up. Through the haze they saw Brian scramble to his feet as the demon dragged Jonny out of the room.

“Let him go!” Brian was begging, following like a lost puppy. Why didn’t he fucking _run?_

She didn’t even answer him as she hauled Jonny back to the living room they had done the god forsaken ritual in. She threw him to the ground next to Ivy and Ashes. The respectively dead and unconscious bodies of Tim and Marius didn’t really count, he thought. Brian filed in after them like he wasn’t following the entity that just killed someone and was probably about to kill the rest of them.

“I'll be right back!’ She singsonged. “Don't do anything stupid.”

Jonny grit his teeth. The floor was sticky with blood and Tim… Tim was right next to him. There were five holes in his neck, each about a half inch in diameter, and though they had stopped bleeding by now there were thick tracks of red staining his skin.

“Where did you two hide?” Ashes asked, breaking the silence.

“Upstairs closet,” Brian said weakly.

They had the gall to roll their eyes over that. “You’re idiots.”

“Oh yea? Where did you hide, O’Reilly?” Jonny snapped. “Because you’re right here with us.”

“I stayed behind with Ivy so she didn’t get hurt.”

“I panicked,” Ivy trembled. 

Jonny felt bad about that. He didn’t mean to make her upset, but now… Well, he couldn’t fix it. Jonny couldn’t fix anything about this situation. He just stared at the holes in Tim’s throat as Brian knelt down across from Ivy and spoke to her in hushed tones about the next read for their book club in an attempt to maintain normalcy. He also spent the time to lament over the fact that the one person in their group that was a doctor was currently unconscious.

The demon returned a minute later, dragging in Raphaella and tossing her down with the others. “Now that we’re all together, we can have a civil conversation. I’ll introduce myself, I’m Carmilla.” The tattered skirt of her dress swished around her ankles as she bowed towards them. No one said anything for a long while. “What’s wrong?”

“You killed our friend!” Jonny shouted.

Carmilla frowned. “Are you still upset about that? Very well.”

She snapped her fingers, and less than half a second later Tim sat bolt upright, gasping and clutching at his throat. Jonny helped him sit up at the same time as trying to clear away some of the glass left on the floor. It just ended up giving him more cuts on his hands.

"Oh my god, Tim!" Raphaella was at their side and checking his throat for the marks that had already disappeared. Now was another great moment to be mad at Marius for being unconscious. 

"There. All better." 

Jonny looked up at Carmilla. "This is not all better!"

"He's alive, isn't he? Your standards are so confusing."

Tim finally stopped gasping for breath. "I was… I was dead. I died."

"Get over yourself." She waved a hand. "Lots of people die, you're lucky enough to come back."

"It was so _cold…"_

Raph wrapped her arms around Tim as if to stave off the chill of death herself. Jonny knew that he should get to his feet, stare this demon down and demand she pay for what she did to Tim or at least leave, but he didn't. He stayed down on his knees next to his friends.

"What do you want?" Ashes asked. 

Carmilla made a thoughtful noise. "That's a great question. I suppose my answer is; none of your business."

“Then what do you want with us?”

“Well, first off I would like to thank you for performing that ritual. Some terribly rude individuals sealed me away an awful long time ago and it feels great to be able to stretch my legs again.” She smiled down at them. “Unfortunately, I need you to do some things for me.”

“Why would we do anything for you?” Jonny growled.

Carmilla lifted the hand still covered in Tim’s drying blood and tapped a finger to her chin. Jonny’s shoulders sagged. He got the message loud and clear. 

“Now, do any of you have some clothes I can borrow?” She gestured to the ragged dress, with its singed edges and mottled color. There was another period of silence, and she sighed. “I can go and get some myself, but I’m afraid I don’t have any money and I don’t believe you’d like what I’d have to do to get it.”

“I think I have some things that would fit you at my flat,” Raphaella stammered. 

“Wonderful. I’ll meet you tomorrow for it, I have an errand I have to run.” Carmilla waved almost cheerfully. “I’d advise not telling anyone about what happened. It wouldn’t look very good for you, I’m afraid.”

The entire world shifted in a sharp right angle, and by the time it had realigned itself, Carmilla was gone like she’d never been there. Well, never been there if it weren’t for the shards of glass and bloodstains on the floor.

Ashes was the first to do something. They rose to their feet, letting out a strained breath. “I’m going to go get some stuff to clean this mess up.”

Jonny unlatched his fingers from Tim’s clothes with great effort as they left.. “What the fuck. What the _fuck.”_

“Jonny…” Brian said in a warning tone.

“No, I’m going to freak out about this! I’m allowed to freak out about this! What just happened? Is she gone, is she coming back, I _don’t know what’s happening.”_

“I think she’s coming over to my place tomorrow?” Raphaella winced. 

“Great! We know one thing and it’s that the _demon_ is going to your home to do a little makeover session!”

Ashes returned with a bucket of cleaning supplies just when Jonny was starting to pace the floor. They unfurled a towel from the crook of their elbow and offered it out to Tim.

“You can sit on this if you’d like,” They invited. Tim silently accepted it, and part of Jonny was concerned that he wasn’t saying anything because that wasn’t like Tim, but a bigger part of him was simultaneously panicking and desperate to cover up said panic.

“We need a plan,” He said, digging his nails into the cuts in his palm. “There has to be something we can do to… _un_ do this!”

“What we _really_ need to do-” Ashes cut in. “-is get some sleep. I have to stay here and clean up. Jonny, you take Ivy, Brian and Tim. He’s in no condition to drive right now.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” The look they sent him was scathing. _You are acting like a child right now._

Ashes continued on after that as if Jonny hadn’t said anything. “Raph, can you take Marius home with you?”

“I guess so,” She hesitated.

Brian was already herding Jonny along towards the front door with Ivy and Tim before he realized what was happening.

“I can drive us all home,” Brian mumbled.

“You are not driving my car-”

“Your hands are covered in blood.”

Right. As much as his handing fucking hurt, he kept forgetting the reason. “Fine. Just this time, though.”

The drive home was silent. Every time Brian tried to turn on music, Tim would lean forward from the back seat and turn it off, muttering something about his head hurting. Jonny stared out the window at the streetlamps moving past, picking at the ragged skin of his arms. They ended up going to Brian’s place. He gave Tim and Jonny spare blood-free clothes as Ivy disappeared into one of the side rooms.

In the bathroom, Jonny spent an unnecessary amount of time staring at himself in the mirror. He’d rinsed all of the blood from his skin, but something was still wrong. He couldn’t figure it out. There was something itching in his bones and he couldn’t figure out how to get it to stop.

Jonny screamed at his reflection until he lost his voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we getting in it now boys. anyways i have now plotted out the entire fic so we've got that sexy chapter count as well as tags for things that are yet to come. except i as i write this i realize i have not updated the relationships tag to polymechs so sorry to anyone who reads this before I do that. anyways. thanks for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

Marius woke up in the car as Raphaella was heading home. She was kind of hoping he’d wait until they got to her flat so she could focus on driving without questions, but then he couldn’t really control it, and the universe seemed to hate Raphaella right now.

“Do you have a concussion?” Raphaella asked as he groaned and rubbed his temple.

“What?”

“You got hit in the head, I’m trying to be a good friend. I didn't go to med school, Marius.”

He paused. “That depends. Did we summon a demon or am I remembering that wrong?”

“Yea, that was a thing.”

“Okay, so that’s one check in favor of no concussion. Shit.” Marius jerked forward in his seat. “Wait, Tim-!”

Raphaella laughed nervously. Here we go. “About that, um, she kind of brought Tim back to life?”

“She _what?”_

“It was kind of nice, but also she was incredibly passive aggressive about it and also she’s coming over tomorrow to borrow some of my clothes but I think I’m just going to let her keep them.” She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “You kind of missed out on a lot while you were unconscious.”

“Seems like it. Jesus.” Marius leaned back. Out of the corner of her eye, Raphaella saw his shoulders droop. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Tim went home with Jonny, Brian and Ivy. Ashes stayed behind to clean up. I think they’re planning on taking the fall if the police show up so I’m kind of regretting leaving but also I think they would have given me the parent stare if I tried.”

“Parent stare?”

“You know that thing they do where they lower their eyebrows a little bit and it looks like if your parent was telling you to do the dishes or something?”

“Oh, yea, I get that. Raph, are you good?”

“I don’t know.” She was now holding the wheel so tightly her knuckles were completely white. “Honestly, Marius, this was not how I thought this night would be going. I thought that you griping about the snack table would be the most dramatic thing.”

Marius snorted. “Yea, it’s kind of wild. Did anyone dress Jonny and Tim’s wounds?”

“Well, Tim doesn’t have any anymore, and Jonny looked like he would have gone feral if anyone touched him.”

“Shit, knowing him he’s going to get them all infected.”

Raphaella let out a choked laugh that sounded more like an awkward squawk. “The man is probably waist deep in infectants right now.”

“We’ll see him tomorrow and have to immediately take him to the hospital.”

Despite the humorous tone, Raphaella could feel that the atmosphere was off. Joking about death wasn’t very fun after watching their friend bleed out. She turned the radio up a bit too loud and stepped a little harder on the gas pedal.

* * *

Raphaella woke up the next morning with Marius’ face buried in her hair. After going to bed together last night, he’d latched onto her like a backpack. As much as she appreciated the affection, she was really regretting not changing clothes before going to sleep.

“Marius,” she whispered. “Wake up.”

“Nng…” He groaned, holding on tighter. “It’s too early, Raph.”

“Come on, I need to check on the others and take a shower.” Raphaella tapped the back of his hand. “If you let go I’ll make you breakfast.”

“Fiiine.”

Marius finally detangled his arms from her waist and rolled over to let her leave. Honestly, he was the one that went unconscious last night, he should have gotten enough sleep for a while. 

Raph sent a text to the group chat asking for everyone’s status. Ashes was the first to respond.

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** everything is cleaned up over here

**lovely miss alexandria:** Jonny passed out but otherwise things are fine.

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** why did he pass out??

**lovely miss alexandria:** He screamed so much he got dizzy. And then he kept screaming. Brian says he has it handled.

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** ah.

Ivy and Ashes continued the conversation as Raphaella took the longest, hottest shower of her life. Though she had not been the one to get the brunt of the gore, she gave up on trying to get the blood out from under her fingernails and ended up clipping them right afterwards. Her skin was an angry red color for a good while once she got out.

There had to be something that she could do right now to fix this. Raphaella went back out to her car and dug around in the back seat until she found where she had stashed the book Ivy had brought to the party last night. No one had picked it up in the confusion, and she figured that since the thing had a real demon summoning ritual, it was pretty dangerous.

She set it down on the kitchen table and pulled up a chair. The thing looked old, like something more out of an antique store than a library. Then again, Ivy worked at a rather eclectic library. Raphaella flipped through the pages, though most of it seemed to be unrelated besides the actual ritual they performed last night. How to extirpate an outer god from a mortal mind, enchanting a ring to find the location of any person, some rather crazy arcane drug recipes, infernal banishment ceremony…

Wait.

Raphaella leaned in closer, frantically scanning the page. Holy shit. Holy _shit,_ this could work. It was day afterwards and she had already found a solution! She was nothing if not a problem solver.

She looked around the room for pencil and paper to write this down, or even just her phone so she could take a picture. Nothing. She’d left it all in her room. Raphaella scrambled to her feet and ran down the hall.

“Wha…?” Marius sat up in bed as she threw the door open.

“Don’t worry about it!” She called, diving into the drawers of her desk for a notebook. “I’ve got everything handled, you can go back to sleep.”

“Oh. Okay?” 

Raphaella was already out the door before Marius could lie back down. She was going to fix this, and then her friends would be happy again! They could move on like nothing happened, and then-

Carmilla was waiting for her when she rounded the corner. Raphaella came to an immediate halt, a couple pencils clattering to the ground as they slipped from her arms. Carmilla smiled, resting a hand on top of the book.

“I came for those clothes we talked about yesterday,” She hummed.

“Oh, of course, they’re…” Shit. Her clothes were in her bedroom and she couldn’t exactly send a demon in there when Marius wasn’t even expecting it, but also she _really_ needed Carmilla to step away from that book. “Um…”

“Is something distracting you, Raphaella?” Carmilla asked innocently.

“No, it’s nothing.” She sounded incredibly suspicious even to her own ears.

Carmilla’s smile fell. “There’s a human play I’m rather fond of. How familiar are you with Hamlet?”

“I read it for a literature class.”

“Then you remember there’s a scene where Claudius and Polonius hide behind an arras using Ophelia as bait to spy on Hamlet. Hamlet gives Ophelia a chance to tell him the truth and say where Polonius is, but she doesn’t.” Was it getting hotter or was Raphaella just going insane? “In a similar scene, he sets up Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to tell him that Claudius paid them to spy on him as well, and they don’t tell Hamlet the truth either.”

“I don’t think I see your point.”

Carmilla nodded thoughtfully, then held up the book. “I just wanted to let you know I gave you a chance.”

The tome caught fire, burning into nothing but ashes within seconds and sending Raphaella’s hopes up along with it.

“You can go get those clothes now.”

Raphaella nodded silently. The walk back to her room felt as though it spanned an impossibly long and difficult terrain. Why hadn’t she taken the book with her? _How had she already fucked things up again?_

She dug around in her closet as quietly as she could. She was determined to keep Marius out of this. Ashes had made their sacrifice last night, and now she was making hers.

Carmilla was examining some art she had up on the wall when she returned. “Good to see you’re being much more obedient now.”

Raphaella stuck out her arms with the clothes draped over them, trying to keep her distance. “I hope you don’t mind how simple it is.”

“It’ll do.” Carmilla took them. “Oh, I also left something for you on the couch. I think you’ll know what to do with it.”

With that, the demon disappeared again. Raphaella’s breath was stuck in her chest. She wasn’t holding it, the air was just trapped, like there was something lodged in her throat blocking it. She couldn’t see the front of the couch from the angle she was at. Raphaella slowly walked into the living room and let out a strangled shout when she saw the “something” Carmilla had mentioned.

The second dead body she had seen within twenty four hours was strewn haphazardly across it like a lifeless mannequin. There wasn’t any blood this time (thank god), but the marks on his neck were such a deep color it made Raphaella’s stomach twist.

She heard the footsteps pounding down the hall as Marius ran in, holding a pen in his hand like a sword. “What happened?!”

“I..!” Raphaella pointed to the situation before her. “There’s a dead man on my couch!” 

Marius followed her finger and paled at the scene. “Oh. Huh.”

“I don’t know how this happened!”

“Well, it looks like he died of asphyxiation, but given the angle of his neck it might have been broken-”

_”Marius!”_

“I’m panicking too, Raph!”

Raphaella stared at the body for a few moments, processing. “We need to get rid of it.”

“We need to what?”

“Think about it for one second! Are we just going to keep it here to decompose? And what are we supposed to say to anyone if they see it? ‘Oh, I’m sorry, we summoned a demon _she’s_ the one who killed this man.’ That sounds literally insane!”

Marius raked a hand through his hair. “Shouldn’t we call one of the others for back up?”

“Jonny is in the midst of a mental fucking breakdown, and Ashes already had to clean up a crime scene, they’ve sort of got their hands full.” She exhaled the sour air from her chest. “You’re a doctor, what do we do?”

“What do you think doctors are?!”

“I assume you know something about the human body which might be useful when we’re _hiding one!”_

_“Can we please stop yelling at each other?!”_

Raphaella stopped. All the tension drained from her muscles, replaced with fatigue. “Yes. I’m sorry. Let's talk through this one step at a time.”

Marius nodded, fiddling with the pen. “Okay.”

“We need a place to hide this. The forest outside of town should work, as long as we go far enough from the trail.”

“Yea. Uh, we should bury it pretty deep. Detection dogs and whatnot.”

“We need shovels then. I think I have some old camping gear in the back of my closet, we can wrap him up in a tarp, stash him in the back and if anyone asks we're going on vacation.”

“Great. Perfect. Maybe it's because we don't have hindsight yet, but we're good at this and it scares me.”

Raphaella shrugged. “Let's not say that until the job’s done. Why don't you go grab something to eat real quick while I get stuff ready?”

Marius nodded again and drifted into the kitchen like a ghost. Raphael's pulled out her phone to check the group chat again.

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** you do see the problem with that though, right?

**send hand nudes:** absolutely not

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** have any of you ever heard the phrase unhealthy coping mechanism

**timopher:** No

**send hand nudes:** absolutely not

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** jonny you cant say absolutely not to everything i say

**angle or devil:** Hey, guys, I just wanted to see how everyone is doing right now.

**send hand nudes:** im doing great

**send hand nudes:** feeling incredible

**send hand nudes:** thank u raph 

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** these are lies

**angle or devil:** Alright, well, I'm about to get busy so if anyone texts me and I don't respond, I'm not dead.

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** comforting?

**angle or devil:** It's work stuff, don't worry.

**angle or devil:** Okay, I love you guys, bye.

She shut her phone off completely before she could see any replies. Right, time to get that camping gear. This was turning out to be a delightful day, wasn’t it?

Thirty minutes later she and Marius were standing in her living room again, wrapping up the dead body like a present for Christmas morning. The current crux of their problem was how to seal it inside without a suspicious amount of duct tape.

“Did you tell the others about me waking up?”

“Hm, well…” Raphaella grabbed a corner of the tarp and tugged it over. “No. It’s fine, though, they probably think that you’re still unconscious.”

Marius grimaced. “Good to know that our friends are so unfamiliar with human functions that being out cold for over twelve hours doesn’t seem concerning.”

“Stop rubbing your medical license in my face.”

“This is basic public school education.”

* * *

The sun had nearly started setting when Raphaella climbed out of the hole they had dug in the middle of the forest, wiping dust and grime from her face. As it turned out, digging was not an easy task, especially when you needed to get a pit deep enough to dump a body into. Raphaella had grown a new appreciation for construction workers.

“Is it my turn?” Marius asked.

“No, I think we’re good enough now. Might as well dump Steve in now.”

“Steve?”

“I felt awkward referring to him as ‘the body’ in my head so I started calling him Steve an hour ago.”

Marius must have just accepted this, because he made no further comment about Steve as they rolled him into the hole. It took another period of time that felt like a millennia to cover it back up. They took the time to scatter about leaf litter, and by the time they were done, it almost looked like nothing had happened here at all.

Raphaella considered saying something, but no phrase she could think of seemed useful. Marius held out his arms towards her, a quiet offer for comfort. She hugged him without a second thought. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, not too unlike how she had woken up that morning.

“Newbies gotta stick together, right?” He rasped.

“Always.”

Marius stepped back, patting Raphaella’s shoulder with a wry smile. “You down for checking me for concussion symptoms when we get home?”

“Oh my god, I completely forgot about that! Are you okay?”

“Yea, it’ll be fine, probably. Not as bad as a demon at the very least.”

The two of them walked back to the car arm in arm as the long shadows of the trees seemed to reach out to grab them. Raphaella would fix this. It was for the people she loved, after all. She had no other choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and another one done! i told you there would be crimes! thank you to everyone on the mechscord that voted jonny's chat handle to be "send hand nudes"


	4. Chapter 4

Tim had been dead for days. Brian lied to him when he asked, saying it had only been about thirty minutes, but Tim knew he was _wrong_. Everything was wrong right now. Any solution Tim tried to come up with didn’t work, or the comfort faded within minutes. It was agony to stay up all night, thinking over and over again of what it had been like to feel his heart stop beating and become suspended in that syrupy slow void.

A phantom chill had overtaken his body. No matter how many blankets he commandeered from the rest of Brian's flat, it wouldn't go away. It was pressing down on him, like fingers squeezing his throat, cold enough to _burn,_ and burn it did. Tim just wanted to be warm again.

Even though he was too cold to get to sleep anyways, Jonny definitely did not make things any easier. Tim stared at the wall as he screamed in the bathroom. He found it to be rather excessive. After a few minutes of continuous shouting, he heard Brian try to intervene but it didn’t sound like it went well for either party. At the point where Jonny started to get into inconsolable hysterics ( _“It’s my fault, Brian, it’s all my fucking fault!”_ ), Ivy silently entered the spare room with Tim and sat down on the bed with him.

They waited together as Jonny screamed, and screamed, and screamed. Ivy flinched hard when it culminated in a loud _thud_ as the shouting abruptly stopped. He could feel her holding her breath while Brian scuffled around the bathroom. A moment later the door cracked open and his head poked through.

“Hey, guys.” Even in the dim backlight from the hallway, Tim could see how shaken Brian looked. “How are you doing?”

“What happened to Jonny?” Ivy asked, fiddling with the sleeve of Tim’s (or rather, Brian’s) shirt.

“He. Um. Passed out from hyperventilation.”

“What was that loud noise then?”

Brian sucked in a sharp breath. “It's okay, Ivy. I have it under control.”

With that said, he closed the door. Ivy fell asleep quickly afterwards, but Tim was awake the whole night, staring into the ceiling for some answer, a sign. He held a hand to his chest, counting each beat of his heart. Every time it started to slow, presumably to let him fall asleep, he started to think _this is it, this is the end again_ and it would pick right back up. The tips of his fingers felt as though they had frostbite.

The morning couldn't come soon enough. Even though Tim had never fallen asleep in the first place, Ivy was the first to get out of bed. He was a little too busy disassociating to bother. Still, eventually he had to get up for the sake of his own sanity. If Tim didn’t move he was going to freeze to the sheets.

He found Brian and Ivy in the kitchen. He was wearing the apron that Jonny got him as a gag gift that said _”trophy husband”_ as he worked over a sizzling pan. Ivy waved at Tim without looking up from her phone.

“I made pancakes!” Brian chimed. “Want any?”

“I'm not in the mood.” Tim wasn't sure if his appetite was going to come back within the next year, let alone this morning.

“Come on, Tim, you've got to eat something.” 

Oh, so Brian was on this now, huh? Tim could deal with that. “Sorry, I guess dying just really fucking took it out of me.”

Ivy stiffened at those words and Brian needed a minute to recover from that retort. “Okay. I’ll set aside a plate for you if you want any later.”

He was ignoring it. Tim dug his nails into his palm. Brian kept lying to him, about the nature of Tim’s death through blatantly incorrect words, and now about how stable Tim was through simple ignorance. As if he pretended it wasn’t happening then that was the truth. 

Tim was suddenly a million miles away from Brian and Ivy. Liar. Liar, liar, liar. Why was he doing this? Tim wasn’t a god damn _child,_ he needed to know what was going on because if he didn’t know, and Brian was going to hurt him, he had to _protect himself-_

The violent bubble that had been growing in Tim’s chest suddenly popped as a door slammed down the hallway. Jonny entered the kitchen, hair mussed up and eyes red. Tim watched him carefully, searching for signs of what had happened last night in the bathroom, but he couldn’t see anything out of place beyond a minute tremble to his hands as he took one of the plates of pancakes.

“What?” Jonny snarled when he realized they were all staring at him. Ivy quickly looked back to her phone, avoiding the potential conflict.

“Are you okay?” Brian asked.

“Oh, yea, I’m _wonderful_ right now, Brian.” Jonny’s voice was positively dripping with sarcasm. Tim was certain that he was making reference to something only Brian understood. “Last night was just so fun, I’m looking forward to the next time.”

“You don’t need to be like that. We’re all stressed out right now.”

“Yea. Stressed.”

* * *

Tim didn’t completely remember how he ended up stradling Jonny’s waist and pinning him to the floor while he cursed and struggled, but he was pretty sure Jonny started it. He hissed as one of Jonny’s flailing hands hit him in the face.

“Get off!” Jonny yelled.

“Make me, you son of a bitch!”

He was so _angry_ , and the fire of it burning in his chest was the first bit of warmth he had felt this morning, so he didn’t let go. His heart was racing, and it was exhilarating. Intoxicating.

Tim felt alive.

“Come on, Tim, you don’t need to do this!” Brian pleaded from across the room. He’d yet to try and come closer, even he didn’t want to deal with Tim. 

“You can fuck off too, Brian!”

A thin stream of blood trickled down Jonny’s wrist from how tightly Tim gripped it. There was hardly any, it was just a small cut, but it glinted in the light of the living room (when had they gotten here?) with ruby red malice. Tim had done that. He’d caused someone pain.

Two arms looped under his shoulders and Brian dragged him up to his feet kicking and screaming. Jonny scooted across the floor until his back was pressed against the wall. God fucking dammit. He struggled against Brian’s hold. He had to _do_ something or he’d get cold and so… so…

Tired. He went limp, the fight draining out in a matter of seconds. “I’m sorry,” He croaked. “I-I don’t know what happened, I was just so angry at you.”

“It’s okay,” Brian said, even though Jonny didn’t respond. “You’re okay.”

A third lie. Tim wasn’t okay. He wasn’t sure if any of them were ever going to be okay again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry tim! you can't die without consequences anymore! this chapter was more of a character study than plot, and it's shorter than the other two, but the next one should bring us right back to the usual word count and drama.


	5. Chapter 5

Ashes was never going to house sit again. Yes, partially because of trauma, but also because their reputation was about to get smeared across town. Even with the mess cleaned up, there was no way they could explain away the broken heel, missing light bulbs, bent silverware _and_ missing rug.

(They just hadn't been able to get the blood out of that one, so they burned it in the backyard. The burnt grass might be a no go too.)

They'd gotten a grand total of four hours of sleep. Everything was just kind of shitty right now, and things were happening one after the other. First Raph asked for a check in, during which Ivy revealed Jonny had “passed out” which was kind of concerning, but she said Brian had it handled and then they started talking about _1984_ and that ended that for a while.

At least until they got another ping in the group chat from Ivy.

**lovely miss alexandria:** _@shut the fuck up about hand nudes_ Jonny and Tim got into a fight.

**send hand nudes:** judas

**lovely miss Alexandria:** That is not an accurate comparison because I am doing this out of love for you. 

**timopher:** we don't need to talk about this

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** yea we do. what the fuck?

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** what happened??

**timopher:** i don't remember, i just know i wanted to be angry

**send hand nudes:** if were being completely honest here i was purposefully egging him on so hed hit me so its fine and we dont have to talk about this

**shut the fuck up about hand nudes:** you do see the problem with that though, right?

**send hand nudes:** absolutely not

They should have seen this coming. Jonny never reacted well to stress, and last night had been a bit much. On the other hand, though, Tim wasn't normally this volatile. Impulsive, sure, but he was kind of sweet deep down. He cared about people. Hell, that hotheaded compassion is what got him killed before, when he tried to kill Carmilla for kicking Jonny.

Frankly, everything was kind of fucked right now. And Ashes needed to find another side job to pad out their income. Fuck. 

They all really needed to meet up and talk about this.

* * *

After a correspondence that took far longer than it really needed to, everyone was gathered once again in the living room of the house again. They might as well use it as much as they could before Ashes was permanently banned from setting within a thousand feet of the place. The Oreos from the other night were set on the coffee table in the middle, but no one had touched them yet.

“So we need a fucking plan,” Ashes said, crossing their arms. 

“I personally think things are going great right now,” Jonny drawled.

“You’re joking, right?”

“Of course I’m fucking joking, everything is terrible.”

Marius raised a hand. “I think you guys need to go through like some first aid basics because in case I get knocked out again. Real smooth move letting me be out cold for over twelve hours, by the way, that’s called a coma.”

“Wow, Marius, there’s no need to brag about the fact that you got to go comatose and I didn’t,” Jonny scoffed.

“Stop twisting my words!”

“Can you two shut the fuck up?” Ashes sighed. “The more you bicker, the more divided we get, and we still don’t have that plan. Has anyone else been visited by her?”

Raphaella bit her lip, kicking at the floor nervously. “She did stop over at my place for those clothes.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“She said that she needed us to do things for her,” Brian worried. “That means she’s coming back.”

Ashes pinched the bridge of their nose. This was not going well. They had hoped that bringing everyone together would mean ideas being thrown into the ring, but all that was happening was a lot of squabbling and panicking. 

“Ivy? Tim?” They addressed the two hiding in the corner. “You haven’t said anything. Any suggestions?”

“Well,” Ivy started. “I was thinking that if we looked through the book that had the summoning ritual in it, there would be something about getting rid of her again, but I left it here when I went with Jonny and Brian. Did you find it when you were cleaning?” 

Raphaella blanched. “About that…”

“Unfortunately I had to get rid of it.” 

Everyone practically fell over turning to where the new voice came from. Carmilla sat in the armchair with her legs crossed, studying an Oreo. She smiled at them.

“What?” Ivy’s voice cracked.

“It was just a risk. Besides, there were other incredibly dangerous things in there. It would have been irresponsible if I left it in your hands.” She set the cookie back down on the coffee table. “You know how it is.”

Everyone was silent. Not even Jonny was making a move, just staring at her with a set jaw that let Ashes know he was scared and didn’t want to show it. 

“Why are you here?” Ashes asked. If no one else was going to take charge, then they would.

“Oh, I have another thing I need you to take care of.”

Jonny squinted at her. “Another?”

Carmilla tilted her head. “Did Raphaella not tell you?” She snapped her fingers and a blood covered body materialized on top of the coffee table. God dammit. The Oreos were definitely ruined. 

“What the fuck,” Brian whispered, eyes glued to the dead man.

“I’m going to need you to get rid of this. Apologies for dropping off another one so soon, but some complications came up on my end. I trust in your abilities, though, you did so well on the first one.”

As soon as she disappeared Jonny had spun around to face Raphaella. “What the fuck did she mean by ‘another’!?”

“Okay, so, maybe after she picked up those clothes she also left a dead guy on my couch which me and Marius hid but it’s fine-!”

“How is that fine?! How is _any_ of that okay to you?!”

“Everyone was dealing with their own shit! You, Tim and Ashes were already arguing in the group chat! What thing could I have possibly done differently that didn’t involve me leaving a corpse in my apartment for some random person to find?”

“You’re a scientist, I’m sure you’re smart enough to have figured something out!”

Ashes inserted themself between the two before either started swinging. “You both need to calm the hell down! So Carmilla left a dead body with Raph and she didn’t tell us, that’s not great, but we have a new one we have to deal with right now and that’s a little more pertinent.” They sighed. “I have to stay back to clean up the blood _again_ , so who wants to take John Smith here?”

“I think Marius should take it,” Tim volunteered. Said doctor did not look too pleased with this.

“Hey, I hid the last one, why do I have to deal with this one?”

“You’re a doctor, I’m sure that has some relevance to the situation.”

“Really? Because it sounds like you’re just trying to pick on me or something.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ashes muttered. “Marius, I’m really sorry, but can you please do this for us? Not a lot of people here are currently suitable to hide a body right now.”

Ashes couldn’t read Marius’ face. They hadn’t known him for as long as the others, so they had yet to nail down his quirks and micro-expressions like everyone else, save Raphaella. Whatever he was thinking, he eventually nodded.

“I think the shovels are still in the car,” Raphaella offered. “Not great evidence wise, but it’s kind of useful now.”

Marius left without another word, before Ashes could even give him a shitty thumbs up or something. They cursed softly. It was time for another night of hardcore cleaning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting into plot now, i swear.


	6. Chapter 6

Hiding a body was not fun. Hiding a body by yourself was even less fun. He stared at the road before him, hands gripped around the wheel as ABBA’s _Dancing Queen_ played at top volume over the speakers. Of course, he was singing along to it. He was only a man, and he couldn’t resist their siren song during even these trying times.

So by the time he had even hit the edge of the forest, his throat was shredded and it hurt to sing, but he kept going because god dammit, _Voulez-Vouz_ came on and if he stopped he was going to have a mental breakdown. 

He went deeper into the forest than he and Raph had last time. Even he had the foresight to guess that hiding two different bodies in the same place was probably not a good idea. Too much evidence, or something like that. Marius tried not to think about it too much. 

His ABBA playlist had run out a while before he got a sufficient distance in, so his speakers were blaring _Walking On Sunshine_ as he swung his legs out of the car door and closed it behind him. As it turned out, not only was hiding a body less fun by yourself, it was also less easy. Marius tried several different ways of carrying it over his shoulders, then in his arms, and eventually he just ended up dragging it and holding the shovel pinned under his arm. The blood had dried up by now anyways. 

“I think Marius should take it,” He muttered in a not-so-great impression of Tim. “Blah blah blah relevance, what the _fuck_ does that mean? I could say that you have ‘relevance to the situation’ because you were dead for thirty minutes, fucking wanker.”

He heard a twig snap and he froze. Oh, god. Please be a deer, please be a deer, _please…_.

Marius looked over his shoulder and saw someone else holding a thing in their arms that, from experience, he could confidently say it was another dead body as well. They stared at each other for what could have been five seconds to a minute, and then the other person dropped their body like a sack of potatoes and had a pistol pointed at Marius before he could react.

“What are you doing out here?” They snapped.

“What do you _mean_ what am I doing? It looks like we’re doing the same thing!”

He took the opportunity to study them a little. They had brown hair pulled up into a messy bun, the kind made of necessity instead of style. A long trench coat ripped right out of a film noir covered most of their body, but Marius caught a glimpse of a bloodstained button up underneath it. They also looked fucking _exhausted_. Deep bags hung under their bloodshot eyes, and even though they held the pistol with the stance of a seasoned professional, Marius could see a minute tremble to their hands.

“Name,” They demanded.

“Marius.”

_“Full_ name.”

“Marius von Raum.” Holy fuck, did having a gun pointed at him make him lose all of his brain cells?

They hesitated for a second, then made a small gesture with the pistol. “Put the body down and give me your drivers license so I know you’re not lying.”

With slow movements, Marius followed their directions. He held his wallet out at arms length, which they accepted from an equal distance. After opening it and studying the identification inside, they tossed it back to his feet. 

“Okay, now give me your name,” Marius said.

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“To put you in a prisoners’ dilemma, asshole, this doesn’t look good for either of us.”

“Christ, it’s Lyfrassir Edda!” 

A staring contest of sorts began, the only sound the rustle of the leaves around them and the quiet pant of Lyfrassir’s labored breathing. 

“So what did your guy do?” Marius asked.

They paused. “You either won’t believe me or you’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Try me.”

“Fine. I was planning on going to a bar, I blacked out before I even drank anything and when I came to I was covered in his blood.” Huh, so Marius might be needed to be a little more careful around this person. “Now you spill.”

“Me and my friends accidentally summoned a demon and now she left us a dead body like a cat with birds.”

They blinked, visibly processing this information. “Ah. I suppose that’s not the weirdest thing I’ve heard.”

“Hah, sounds like I’d hate to be in your shoes then.”

Lyfrassir laughed a little bit too loud. “Yea, you probably would.”

“You believe me about the demon, though?”

“Yes.”

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it kind of concerned Marius how quickly they had come around on the demon thing. Sane people probably weren’t one to accept something like that so easily. “So you really don’t know what happened to this guy?”

“Well…” They used one hand to pull their collar to the side, revealing strips of angry red marks on their throat. “I think it might have been a defense mechanism. The whole day is kind of hazy for me.”

A few days ago, Marius would have been a little more stringent on his “no murdering” policy, but after recent events this seemed like a righteous killing. 

“Can you put the gun down now, please?”

Lyfrassir looked from Marius, to the pistol, back again, then sighed and put it away. “Sorry. I’m kind of on edge.”

“Maybe you’d like to take it off by helping me bury a body? I’ll help with yours.”

“Ah, about that, I…” They pursed their lips. “I’ll help you, but you don’t really need to do anything?”

“... What does that mean?”

“Stand back,” they commanded. Marius took a couple steps away as they raised their arms. The wind made a whistling noise as it picked up. Lyfrassir’s coat fluttered around their ankles, the edges of the fabric suddenly stained with splashes of rainbow light.

Marius watched as the earth swallowed the bodies. Or, _something_ did. The ground became slimy and squamous, as though Lyfrassir had uncovered some enormous creature. It wasn’t like quicksand, where they just sank it, it looked as though it made an effort to open its maw and… eat them.

The wind came to an abrupt halt as Lyfrassir dropped to one knee. Maris gaped at the spot where the bodies used to lay. 

“Holy _shit,”_ He whispered. “How the hell did you do that?”

“I would, hah, love to tell you, but I need you to do me a favor in return.”

“Of course, what is it?”

“I need you to catch me.”

“What…?” Marius barely noticed that Lyfrassir was tipping over to the side and had to lunge forward to grab them before they hit the ground. “Shit!”

Hm. Okay. This was probably why they had believed him about the demon thing. Yea. Okay. Shit. It would probably be rude to leave them in the middle of the forest, let alone a crime scene. He made an effort to carry Lyfrassir more comfortably than the other guy since they were, y’know, alive, so he’d feel kind of guilty if they woke up with a crick in their neck or something.

Marius dialed up Raphaella once he got a decent distance from the car. She answered after two rings.

“How’d it go?” She asked as he fumbled to open the car door with an armful of person.

“Aw, no hello? Anyways, I have a series of news.”

“Just… news?”

“It’s a mixed bag.” He hefted Lyfrassir up and placed them in the passenger seat. “Good news; I got rid of the body.”

“Okay.”

“Bad news; I met someone there.”

“Marius-!”

“Good news: they were also hiding a dead body and now we’re friends so that’s cool.”

“That still isn’t-”

“Bad news: other supernatural shit besides Carmilla exists and I’m not sure how concerned about it we’re supposed to be.”

Raphaella’s deep sigh crackled over the phone line. “Marius, no offence, but this all seems like pretty bad news. Where’s this person now?”

“They passed out from exhaustion so I’m loading them up in the car right now. Do you know how to make soup?”

_“Marius!”_ She made her classic huff of disbelief. “If they were hiding a dead body that means they killed someone! I’m not making them soup!”

“It’s really complicated, but I don’t think they did it on purpose. I’ll talk to you about it when I get home, okay?” He slid into the driver’s seat and closed the door.

“Fine. I’m at Brian’s right now, but he’s not here so just let yourself in.”

“I love you, Raph.”

“... I love you too.”

“Bye.”

“Goodbye.”

He hung up and turned the key in the ignition. _Bop To The Top_ from High School Musical immediately started blaring over the speakers as the engine roared to life. Oh, yea. It was that kind of night.

* * *

Figuring out how to unlock the door and get it open while carrying an unconscious person bridal style was an endeavor, but Marius still managed to get inside Brian’s godforsaken apartment. 

“Raphaella, I’m back!” He called. “You have to promise you won’t freak out when I explain all this.”

He rounded the corner to the kitchen to find Raphaella standing awkwardly next to Jonny, who was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. 

“Fuck.” Marius cursed.

“Excellent choice of words,” Jonny said brightly. “I’ll throw it right back at you. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Can I please put them down before I explain? My arms are tired.”

“No, they’re your responsibility. Put up with the consequences of your actions.”

That didn’t seem like a fair equivalent, but fine. “They helped me.”

“They helped you _bury a body,_ Marius. Just because we’re being forced to commit crimes doesn’t mean that we have to rub shoulders with people that do.”

“I think they’re in the same boat as us!” Marius shouted. “They said that they blacked out when they killed their guy, and at first I was kind of doubting them but then they summoned this weird scaly thing to get rid of the bodies and whatever it was it was _definitely_ supernatural!”

Jonny’s glare did not cease. “It’s late. We’re going to talk about this in the morning.”

He left the kitchen, leaving Raphaella alone with Marius.

“Did you really have to tell him?” Marius asked.

“I didn’t want him to get mad at me for not telling him when stuff happened again,” She explained. “How do you he would have reacted if you showed up with Inspector Blood-Stained without any warning?”

She had a point, but he was still kind of mad at her. “Is there anyone on the couch tonight?”

“Well, it was going to be you unless you want to share a bed with Tim.”

“I think I’ll just sleep on the floor. Tim’s got a mile-long stare going on that’s kind of concerning me right now.”

“Marius, you don’t need to-”

“I’m _going_ to, Raph, because I’m _nice.”_ He smiled at her. “I’ll make pancakes in the morning to make up for everything.”

She gave him a sad look as he left to go put Lyfrassir down on the couch. On top of being sleep deprived, they also felt like they had been subsisting on morning dew and coffee for the past month or something. He was definitely going to make sure they ate something in the morning. 

After making sure they weren’t going to fall onto the floor, Marius grabbed a blanket and curled up in the armchair. It wasn’t going to be his best night of sleep, but also he’d had worse during studying for exams. No one could ever say Marius was not a chivalrous man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooops two chapters in one day. this one was already half written by the time i posted ashes' chapter so, yea. also, if you want, i made a spotify playlist for this fic called [marius drives to the forest to hide a dead body](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45fJX86RabmR2K6thFKA1q?si=e1VBnEPaTwubNu3fOjxiWA). This is canonically the playlist that Marius is listening to while he's driving. Yes high school musical is on it.


	7. Chapter 7

Ivy could relate a lot to Ophelia.

She was a woman pulled around by the whims of those more powerful than her, all for their own gain with no regard to how it would affect her. She was told she was unloved, that she had never been loved, and forced to go through it over and over again so her father could hopefully get more power. In the end, her own death might have been out of her control.

Ivy was pulled around a lot through this too. She may have caused the inciting incident by bringing the book, but everyone else were the ones making the big decisions. Ashes cleaned up the scenes, Marius hid the bodies, Brian dealt with the emotional fallout, Tim fought tooth and nail for whatever was going on with him, Jonny scolded everyone for dumb choices and Raphaella had taken the book. Ivy’s book. And she’d gotten it destroyed.

Ivy didn’t necessarily blame her for it, or at least not completely. Carmilla had been the one to ruin it. Except if Raphaella hadn’t taken it, it would have been with Ivy or Ashes, and Carmilla wouldn’t have been there, so yea, actually, Ivy did blame Raphaella for it. 

She just felt useless. Sure, she wasn't about to go on a maddened rant about flower symbolism and sing songs at inappropriate times, but sometimes she understood the sentiment. Maybe going home alone hadn't been the smartest idea she'd ever had, but she wanted control. She didn't want to become Ophelia.

Given that, it shouldn't have been a surprise when she saw Carmilla sitting at her dining table when she woke up the next morning. She smiled at Ivy, like they were friends or good acquaintances and that last night she hadn't dumped a corpse on a coffee table right in front of her.

“Hello Ivy.”

“I'm not supposed to talk to you,” Ivy said with clipped words.

“Well now, that's rather rude. Who told you that you shouldn't talk to me?”

“My friends. Common sense.”

“Oh, but Ivy, you understand me better than any of the others.” She put her elbows up on the counter and leaned forward on them. “I'm looking for knowledge, and you can help me.”

“I'm not going to help you hurt anyone.”

“I wouldn't dream of making you do such a thing. I need you to get a book for me, from that library you work at. It's about as big as the one you used to summon me, leather cover, title written in Latin. In the reference only section.”

Ivy gripped the hem of her shirt. Getting something for a demon was one thing, but taking a book from the reference only section for a demon? That was untenable. “I won't.”

Carmilla sighed. “Ivy, I really don't want to fight you on this.”

“Why don't you go and get it yourself?”

“It's rather uncouth, I'd prefer not to do something that could get my library card revoked.” Ivy knew for a fact Carmilla did not have such a card. “Plus, I won't have to hurt any other humans to do it. That's a bonus for you.”

“You've already killed three people in just as many days.”

“Two and a half, I brought Tim back to life. None of you seem to appreciate that, it makes me think you all want him dead.”

Ivy’s breath hitched. “Don't hurt him.”

Carmilla looked at her like it was funny that Ivy assumed she would go through with her vague threat. “It would be a wasted effort. He's more of a danger to himself at this point than he is to me.” Ivy’s stomach twisted at those words. “I'd really prefer not to threaten you. It takes up time and puts our relationship on a rocky path.”

“I'm not going to take that book.”

“Fine,” Carmilla grimaced. “Then I suppose you won't mind if Tim goes missing? He's been so volatile recently, I'm sure no one would be surprised. It would also be a damn shame if someone were to call the police with the tip to check that house Ashes is taking care of for blood. Or the next time Raphaella goes to work-”

“I get the picture,” Ivy said.

“Then what's your choice? Your friends or the book?”

* * *

She took it. She took it, she took it, she took it, and now it was sitting in the car seat next to her. Ivy couldn't see it right now, it was stashed away in the book bag she put it in, but she could feel it asking _why, why would you do this_. She fumbled around with clumsy, shaking fingers for her phone and scrolled through her contacts for someone who wouldn't be busy.

As usual, Brian picked up his phone quickly. “Hey.”

“Brian, where are you?”

“I'm getting groceries, why?”

“Can you come over, I really, really need to talk to you.”

“I-I mean sure, Ives, what happened?”

“No one dead,” she assured. “But I really need you to be here to talk about it.”

“Okay, I'll be right over there.”

As soon as Brian hung up, Ivy scooped the bookbag up in her arms and rushed to her flat. She wanted to spend as little time outside with this stupid book as she could. Once inside she spent the entire time pacing, and thinking, and trying to understand what was going on. 

Brian entered thirty minutes later with a box of raisins, tossing them onto the counter. “I got you something.”

“Thank you.”

“So what happened?”

Ivy took a deep breath. “Carmilla stopped by earlier and told me to take a book from the reference only second, and I tried to say no but she started threatening to hurt everyone, so I did it, and now I have it, and I don’t know what to do.”

Brian stared, taking in the information Ivy just dumped onto him. “Okay. We can deal with this. Do you still have it?”

She nodded, gesturing to the table where it lay. They stood on either side of it, watching it as though it might jump and attack either of them at any second.

“What's it about?” Brian asked. 

“I don't know. I haven't looked.”

“Are there… Any curses on it that will get us if we open it?”

“Someone had to open it to tag it for cataloging, so no.”

“You're absolutely sure that none of your staff in charge of that has died under mysterious circumstances?”

“Pretty sure, yea.”

Brian reached forward and opened the book to a random page. It was printed, Times New Roman font with a hand drawn diagram breaking up the text on the right page. “It seems pretty normal to me,” He said.

Ivy turned it around so she could read it. A lot of the words didn't make sense to her. It wasn't that they were in a different language, it was as though she could understand each individual word but not the finished sentence. Less than the sum of its parts, in a way. 

“What's it say?” Brian asked.

“Mm, something about crossover lines. The language is pretty cumbersome.”

He pointed to the diagram. “I can’t really tell what this thing is either. I’d say it looks kind of like a mandala but…”

“It’s more like a five year old’s crayon drawing?” Ivy finished. He winced and nodded. “It might have something to do with that crossover lines bit.”

Brian groaned. “I feel like we’re getting nowhere with this.”

“I can’t really help but agree with you.” Ivy flipped through the rest of the book, looking for something else that could give them a clue. It was all written in that abstruse language. She turned back to the first page they were on and took a picture of the diagram.

Carmilla materialized next to her, and Ivy had to force herself not to jump away. She walked around the table to stand next to Brian, stashing her phone in her jacket as discreetly as she could.

“You got the book!” She crooned. “I was a little worried you’d go back on our deal.”

“Just take it and leave,” Ivy said, gripping the hem of Brian’s sleeve.

“You’re so eager to get rid of me, it almost hurts my feelings.”

Brian edged his way in front of Ivy to situate himself between her and Carmilla. “Unless you need anything else, we really need to rest. We’ve kind of been dealing with a lot recently.”

Carmilla shrugged and tucked the book under one of her arms. “Have it your way. I look forward to seeing you again.”

Instead of disappearing this time, she walked down the hallway. Ivy stood there frozen with Brian in the kitchen until they heard the front door open and click shut.

Ivy held on tighter to Brian’s sleeve. “I think I messed up. I shouldn’t have given that to her.”

“No, Ivy, you did the best that you could. She would have killed you if you didn’t.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m going to go back home with the others. You should come with me, being alone is dangerous right now.”

“Okay.”

As she left the flat with Brian, Ivy thought once again about Ophelia. To see what I have seen indeed. She regretted ever complaining about the others being the ones to make decisions. 

As it turned out, the illusion of choice was no better than the lack of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i've been posting a lot recently huh. after getting past the block i had on ashes' chapter things are really flowing much faster.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for some non graphic self-harm in the form of hot showers

_“What’s wrong with them? Why are they staring-”_

_Staring into the endless night, Lyfrassir sees eyes turn to look at them through the stars and there’s something wrong-_

__“-Wrong _with you?! You haven’t been at work in days, you can’t just do that without calling-”_

_Calling them closer and closer. They see colors they’ve never witnessed before, and it’s beautiful. Like they’ve been looking at flat paper dolls instead of people their whole life. They smiled-_

_“They smiled at me, do you understand that? Every damn question during the interrogation and they just smiled! They’re unstable-”_

_Unstable. Did you hear that, Lyfrassir? They called you _unstable_. They don’t have the knowledge you possess, they haven’t seen what you’ve seen. You shouldn’t have to put up with that. I would never say such hurtful, untrue things. I would never hurt you, my little one-_

_One spark of inverted light, sucking the endless night like a black hole, but it didn’t pull in the stars. Only the inky black backdrop behind them. It all grew brighter, and brighter, burning their eyes and it_ hurt _, it was consuming them-_

Lyf yelped as they woke with a flash of radiant light. A sharp pain shot through their shoulder. Someone was hurting them, they had to fight back, they-!

“Hey, hey, hey!” Someone grabbed their wrists, then quickly drew their hands back. “Ow, okay, bad idea. It’s me, Marius!”

“Marius?” Their mind was racing so fast it took them longer to grab onto one of the threads. Right, Marius, from the forest, with the dead body. Lyf shook their head to clear it. “Where am I?”

“You’re at my friend Brian’s flat.”

Okay. Now that they weren’t panicking and could actually look around with a level head, Lyf saw that they were sitting on the floor of someone’s living room. The pain from before must have been them rolling off the couch behind them in the rush of terror from their nightmare. They weren’t in danger, they were _fine_.

“Did our sleeping beauty finally wake up?” Lyf looked up and saw another man with long hair leaning against the wall with a mug in his hands. “You’ve been out for a whole day.”

“A _day?!”_

“Tim!” Marius scolded. “You don’t need to worry them like that!” He turned back to Lyf. “It’s fine, you were just exhausted. You looked like you were overdue for a nap anyways.”

“That wasn’t a nap!”

“Okay, what do you want me to call it?”

“I don’t know!”

They didn’t much care for the fact that Tim laughed into his mug. Lyf was having a crisis right now, and they liked their mental breakdowns to be taken seriously. 

“So, Lyfrassir-” Marius started.

“Just Lyf today.”

“But yesterday you said…”

“It’s gender stuff, okay? I’m too tired to explain the minutiae of my identity.”

Thankfully, Marius dropped the subject. Only to pick up one that was arguably worse. “We need to talk about that thing you did to bury the bodies.”

“Oh, you know, it was just a little trick I’ve picked up over the years,” they said nonchalantly. 

He frowned. “You really should tell me before Jonny wakes up because he’s going to be much less nice about this than I am.”

“Oh yea,” Tim snorted. “He’s fit to have an aneurysm.”

“Can I at least take a shower and get a change of clothes before we get into my traumatic backstory?” Lyf asked. 

“I don’t know,” Marius winced. “Jonny’s probably going to get up pretty soon.”

Tim sighed in exasperation and took a drink from his mug. “Christ, Marius, let them take the damn shower.”

The feeling of appreciation filled Lyf’s chest. Maybe it was because their emotions had been running at their highest setting for a long time, but that comment made them move Tim up five steps in their list of favorite people. Which, considering how short it was, put him very high up.

Marius conceded, helping Lyf to their feet. They tried really, _really_ hard not to think about the warmth of his hand in theirs. Lyf was just sensitive after the shock of their nightmare. Flashback. Whatever. 

After they showed Lyf where the bathroom was, they stripped down and turned the water up almost as hot as it would go. There was an itch deep in their skin, and they had to get rid of it. The heat burned their skin, a pleasant tingle like being consumed by the bright singularity. 

They watched the red tinged water circle its way down the drain at their feet. It took fifteen minutes just to get the blood out from the roots of their hair, and another ten to deal with the mess that was their fingernails. When Lyf stepped out from behind the curtain with steam rising from their skin, they found a post-it note with _“though you’d want these :)”_ scrawled across it stuck to a set of clean clothes. Someone must have brought it in during their shower.

The clothes were a little bit too big, but nothing incredibly unmanageable. Lyf went back into the flat. There was no sign of Tim or Marius, but there was another new person.

“Hey! You’re out!” He smiled at Lyf. “I hope you didn’t mind me stepping in to give you those clothes.”

“I didn’t even notice that you had. Who are you?”

“I’m Brian. This is actually my flat, and those are my clothes as well.”

Oh, Jesus Christ, Lyf was pretty sure that they were going to fucking die right then and there from embarassment. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s totally fine. A lot of people have been borrowing my things recently.”

“Nice to see that you guys are having another heart to heart,” came another unfamiliar voice behind Lyf. Too many things were happening.

They turned slowly, coming face to face with a man smiling, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Lyf waved tentatively. “You must be Jonny.”

“And you must be Lyf. I must say, it’s such a pleasure to meet the person Marius met on his corpse hiding escapade. It definitely does not reflect on you badly at all. He filled me in on the little ‘summoning’ stunt.”

“It’s actually a little bit different than summoning? I didn’t really invoke any kind of creature, I just kind of tore the fabric of reality so I could change the properties of the ground and this really doesn’t sound any better does it?”

Jonny shook his head, still smiling. It was starting to get to Lyf. “I’m guessing you weren’t always like that?”

“No.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I…”

_Don’t say anything_. They stood up stock straight as a whisper that sounded like cold hands being wrapped around their heart echoed in their head. Lyf grit their teeth, struggling to breathe.

“I… I… I used to be an investigator,” They forced out.

“Really? And what ever happened with that?”

The startling sensation of a camera flash you weren’t expecting ripped across their vision. Shit. The scent of copper filled their nose. “It didn’t work out.”

“Jonny, I think you’re stressing them out,” Brian warned.

“I think they can take a little stress if they killed someone. What _happened?”_

“I didn't find the job satisfying, I realized that I hated the institution and I didn't want to hold it up on my shoulders any longer, and I watched a whole squad of people die.” It all came out in one uninterrupted breath. They hadn’t really meant to say it.

It had definitely been a mistake. Jonny seized Lyf by the lapels and spun them around to pin them against the wall. Over his shoulder, they saw Brian’s eyes widen.

“And why did _that_ happen?” Jonny growled.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Lyf squirmed as he leaned in closer. Jonny was less than an inch away from their face, and their sleepless, addled brain was choosing to focus on how pretty he was instead of the imminent threat of violence. They also blamed it a little bit on the heat of their shower.

“You do realize how fucking suspicious that sounds, right?”

The copper smell was so intense that Lyf was getting lightheaded. Blood was splattered across all the walls, great read streaks like wounds to the architecture itself. And eyes, visible and invisible, were staring at them. And dammit, Jonny was too _close_.

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry-”

“Then give me a straight answer!”

“I don’t want to do the things it makes me do!” Lyf sobbed. “It’s like it controls me, and then I have to clean up the mess it all leaves behind. I know you have to do the same things too!”

Jonny let go of their shirt. He had been holding them up more than they realized, as soon as they lost that support they went crashing to their knees. 

“Shit. Sorry, I didn’t mean to drop you.” 

Breathe. They had to calm down or they might black out, and good things never happened when they blacked out. “It’s fine.”

Brian was suddenly next to them, helping them to their feet. “Are you okay?”

“Yea, I’m okay.” Lyf gathered up any scraps of determination they had and forced themself to meet Jonny’s eyes. “I want to tell you about what happened, but I _can’t,_ okay? When I try to, it takes over, and that has less than great implications.”

Jonny said nothing, but he nodded which was a good sign. Lyf really felt in the mood to pass out again. They wouldn’t, because that would probably concern others, but they really wanted to. They also were regretting taking such a hot shower. It felt like they might have some scalds. Really, they were just sick of having to be alive. At least now they might have people who could help them, right?

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updates are probably gonna slow back down because I have some cleaning n other stuff to catch up on, but 4 chapters in less than 48 hours seems pretty good.


	9. Chapter 9

Emotions were running high, and Tim was about to take advantage of it.

So starting a fight had not been a productive way to get his heart beating in his chest, lesson learned. But the longer he sat around the flat, waiting for something to happen the more he thought about bad things. Things like dying breaths, blood soaked shirts and empty, yawning voids. Tim did not like thinking about those things.

This all meant he needed something new to channel his destructive feelings. This opportunity came when Brian stepped out to buy groceries. Jonny and Raphaella were with Ashes, and Ivy was out doing only God knows what, leaving Tim and Marius alone in the flat with the sleeping stranger Marius had brought in.

It had been a spur of the moment decision, really. Marius was sitting in the armchair he had slept in that night, scrolling through something on his phone, and Tim decided that if he didn't do something right fucking now, he was going to die again.

In the next five seconds Tim was straddling his hips while Marius stared up wide eyed.

“I'm going to kiss you,” Tim declared.

Marius licked his lips, letting out an odd laugh. “Well, don't let me be the one to stop you.”

Tim dipped down and they met with the clashing of teeth and lips, and he instantly knew that yea, this would work. It was all the adrenaline of pinning Jonny to the floor, except a little bit sweeter because Marius was shivering as he moaned against his skin.

Marius pulled back for a second, placing a hand on Tim's chest to stop him when he tried to follow. “Hey, be a little bit more quiet, okay? I don't want to wake them up.”

Given the lack of literally any other person, Tim assumed he was talking about the unconscious, bloodied individual on the nearby couch. He switched strategies, leaning down to nip at the skin of Marius’ neck.

“You're so fucking stupid,” Tim snarled, shoving his hands up underneath Marius’ shirt. 

“That's kind of mean.” 

“Do you ever think through things for one bloody second? Or do you just do the first thing that enters your thick skull?”

“Says the man who just sat on my lap and started kissing me.”

He threaded his fingers through the short hair at the back of Marius’ head and pulled so he could get a better angle at his throat. _“And_ you never shut up.”

Marius brushed away his hands. “I’m more concerned with making _you_ shut up.” He met halfway with Tim in another searing kiss. 

They both stopped talking for a good while after that, becoming all too absorbed in the task at hand. The best Tim could describe it as was explosions of fireworks going off inside of him, bursts of light and heat that sent sparks cascading through his veins. He moved the hand stuffed under Marius’ shirt to his belt and fumbled with the clasp to-

“Wait, wait, Tim, stop!” Marius put his hands on Tim’s shoulders. 

“What? What’s wrong?” Unreleased energy thrummed just underneath his skin.

“I think we should stop, this doesn’t really seem like a good idea.”

Tim stopped. Thought about what Marius just said.

_Shit._

He got up from Marius’ lap, doing his best to not show how afraid he was. He wasn’t going to let Marius know how much he needed this. “Yea, okay. That’s fine.”

“We can still talk about this-”

“No, that’s okay.” He ran his hands through his hair to hide how they shook. “I’m just going to. Go now.”

“Tim…”

“I _really_ need to be alone right now.” In reality, he really didn’t, but if he stuck around Marius was going to see him fall apart, so he rushed out of the room and into the spare that he’d been sleeping in for the past few nights.

The residual warmth of Marius’ body lingered behind like a ghost, a shield and a threat all at once. Soon enough it would be gone, and Tim would be cold again. It was going to be fine, though. He’d find another way to get his heart racing soon enough.

* * *

Raphaella stopped by to check in on all of them, and Tim ended up in a make out session with her in the bathroom. The pace with her was a lot different than the one with Marius, slow and languid to the point where Tim got a bit frustrated but in the end that was just as effective.

One of her legs hitched up between his to aid in her mission of pressing Tim harder into the wall. He shuddered at the contact, tangling his fingers through her hair. “Would I be remiss if I asked you to fucking do something?”

“I am doing something.” He could feel her smirk as she pressed her lips to the corner of his.

“Something _more.”_

“I think you need to learn to appreciate a gentle touch.”

Tim might’ve made a snarky comment in response, but as much as Raphaella took her sweet time doing things, she had a certain force behind all of it. His spine was being pressed hard enough into the wall that it would probably be sore for a good hour after this exchange. There was something he loved about her for that.

She made a contented noise when Tim stopped trying to fight the pace she set and settled into it. Strange that the slow one was dominant. Raphaella pinned his wrists to the wall when he tried to put his hands on her waist.

“You didn’t ask,” She cooed.

“Raph, _please.”_ His fingers twitched. He needed to do something with his hands or he was going to lose it.

“Use your words.” Raph lifted up the leg that was between his a little bit more. For someone who wanted him to use his words, she was making it very hard to think.

Someone knocked on the door, and there was a cold void where Raphaella used to be pressed up against him. The swiftness of it drew all of the air out of his lungs. 

“Raph, you in there?” Brian’s voice called.

“Yea, sorry!” She turned to Tim with a finger pressed to her lips. “What’s up?”

“We’re about to head out again and you’ve been in there for a while.”

“I’ll be out in a minute Brian!” They waited as his footsteps got further and further away. Raph ran a hand down her face. “This was so stupid.”

Something twinged painfully in his gut. “Raph-”

“I can’t believe I did this. I mean you… I’m not…” She sighed. “I have to go, Tim.”

She fixed her clothes and quickly exited the bathroom, leaving Tim alone. His back was still up against the wall, his legs still shaking from the rush from earlier. That same ghost of warmth that had haunted him after his time with Marius had returned. 

Tim stumbled forward, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The hair at the back of his head was tangled and matted and his lips were reddened. He looked like a mess. He took a few minutes to straighten his hair once more, and left the bathroom.

* * *

And now Tim was out of people. The others were either too “responsible” or whatever the fuck, save for Jonny who was probably still hung up on that nearly strangling him thing, so. Oops?

It was getting worse too. Ice had begun to creep its way around his ribs, into his lungs. Tim hated the cold, hated the ever-slowing beat of his heart. He wondered if it had always been like this, that he could only notice it now that he knew what it was like to be at a complete standstill. 

It’s not his fault that he’s doing all this. He was just trying to fix what Carmilla broke.

* * *

Now Lyfrassir… Lyfrassir was interesting. He hadn't known them for all that long at all, but there was a certain intrigue about them. That, and the mussy, unhinged look was kind of hot. The other appealing thing is that they didn't have the full backstory on Tim's situation and wouldn't get antsy about unhealthy coping mechanisms like the others.

Plus, they looked so tightly strung that they could use this as much as him.

He watched them as they sat on the couch, hands folded together. Lyfrassir had chosen a specific point in the wall to stare at. They'd been mildly despondent ever since he had gotten back. Brian had mentioned they had a not-so-great run in with Jonny. 

Tim stood in front of them. “You look like shit.”

“Well, no offense, but I could say the same thing to you,” they retorted.

He smiled. It was weighed down with the slowly encroaching tightness in his chest, but he smiled. “What’s wrong?”

“I… I don't feel right.” They unclasped their hands. “Ever since Jonny grabbed me it's just been hovering right at the edges, and I don't _want_ to lose control again.”

Tim watched as they fidgeted, twisting one of their braids around their fingers. “I have a mutually beneficial idea, though it might seem a little forward.”

Lyfrassir gave him a puzzled look. “Alright, what is it?”

“We go to my room and fuck until we pass out.”

It was impossible to read Lyfrassir's expression as they thought about this. Their eyes met his, and he had a single moment of a profound connection with them. _I need to feel something right now, if only to prove that I can._ They both knew that this was a pretty stupid idea. They knew next to nothing about each other, after all. 

“That sounds kind of great right now.”

Less than thirty seconds later they were down the hallway in the spare room and Tim was roughly shoving Lyfrassir against the wall as he latched onto their throat.

“As a warning, I haven't gotten laid in a while,” They gasped.

“Whatever.” He didn't try to come up with a better answer, busy chasing after the sensation of being fucking _alive_.

“I just wanted to say that in case my performance-”

“Oh my _god,_ if you have the ability to form coherent sentences I'm not doing good enough.”

* * *

Tim woke up the next morning without any clothes on underneath sheets that were too thin. His jaw was fucking sore, though he supposed Lyfrassir wouldn't be faring much better. Speaking of, they were currently half draped over him like a human blanket, which he appreciated for a while. At least up until he started to get antsy and needed to move. Tim nudged them over, taking care to keep them covered in the sheets. He was nothing if not a gentleman. There were some… things about last night that they probably needed to talk about, but for now he could let them sleep.

He changed into some of the new clothes Raphaella had brought over from his own place and walked out to the kitchen. Brian had to have some kind of cereal around here, right? He just went out for groceries and if he hadn't gotten Cheerios or something Brian needed to reevaluate the kind of energy they all had for making breakfast.

Ashes was already sitting at the table when he went to go get breakfast.

“So,” They said.

“So.” Tim walked right past them and dug around in the cupboards. If they wanted to talk about what had happened, Tim was going to make them be the one to say it out loud.

“About last night…”

“I’m so sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ll have to jog my memory.”

They glared at him. “I know you're a grown man who can make his own decisions, but I really don't think you're dealing with this in a healthy way.”

“And what way might that be?”

“You're being a fucking child right now, Tim.”

“Oh, ouch, that one really dug in deep,” He deadpanned. 

Lyfrassir ran into the room with a wild look in their eyes, wearing Tim's rumpled clothes from yesterday. “Tim is missing, I-!”

As soon as they saw Tim and Ashes standing together in the kitchen, their mouth snapped shut. He turned to Ashes again, a grin of smug pride on his face.

“See, Ashes? I was with Lyfrassir all last night. They’re responsible. It’s basically a chaperone situation.”

“I think that I’ll just go back to bed-” Lyfrassir squeaked, turning for the hallway again. Tim caught them by the sleeve.

“Don’t feel threatened by Ashes, they’re just a little grumpy this morning.” They glared at Tim, but he wasn’t about to back down now. “You’re a guest.”

_Please don’t leave me too._

Lyfrassir’s shoulders relaxed considerably, though they were still tense. A knot of anxiety in Tim’s stomach released. They were still there.

“Tim,” Ashes said with slow determination. “I know you’re going through some shit right now, but you really need to evaluate how you’re dealing with it and how it could affect others.”

“Cool line, would you like to put it on an inspirational calendar?”

Ashes rolled their eyes and went to leave the kitchen. “The others are going to show up soon. You might want to do something to cover up those hickeys on your neck.”

Ah, shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and this chapter is one reason why the fic is rated M.


	10. Chapter 10

Everyone had a weakness, and Brian’s happened to be that he cared too much. It hurt so, so much to see everyone else in pain. But the real kicker for this weakness was Brian's damn sense of ethics. He wasn't like the others in the fact that they could destroy evidence and hide bodies. Hell, even Ivy had stolen a book. 

That didn't mean he ever even thought about turning them in. He just couldn't bring himself to do those things. So he gave up clothes, space in his flat, and time. Everyone else had completely forgotten about the mundane things, so Brian went grocery shopping. He changed sheets.

This was the best he could do.

* * *

“Give me your king.”

Ashes’ eyes flick over the cards in their hand. “Go fish.”

Brian sighed and reached for the deck on the kitchen table between them. “Even you don't have the gall to cheat at Go Fish, right?”

“Maybe.” The corner of their lip quirks up. “Or maybe that's my bluff.”

He knew that even if he did get definitive proof they were cheating, he wasn't going to bring it up. He figured that they needed every little bit they could get right now.

“How many days left do you have at the murder house?” Brian asked.

“You don’t need to call it the murder house,” Ashes snorted, rearranging the cards in their hand. “I’ve got a few days left before the owner comes home. I think anything that would get us arrested is cleaned up, but I also don’t think I’ll be going back there any time soon.”

“Sorry you had to clean that up all by yourself. Uh, twice.”

“No big deal. You guys just owe me dinner.”

Brian smiled. “I’ll be sure to make it really fancy.”

“Yea, I want a real expensive chardonnay.”

“You don’t even drink wine.”

“It’s to make things difficult for you.”

There’s a moment of laughter, and for a second Brian forgets about the black cloud looming over them.

* * *

Raphaella kicked her feet up on the dashboard as Brian drove her home. It was her car, but unlike Jonny she didn’t give all fussy about other people driving it, and Brian wanted to do something nice. Give her some time to relax.

“So I have Marius’ phone,” She spoke up.

Brian swerved just a little bit on the road. _“Raph!”_

“He gave it to me, I swear!” That wasn’t a likely story, but Brian was a little busy. “Anyways, I have the playlist he pulled up when he went to go drive that one body to the forest by himself.”

“That’s… morbid.”

“Well, yea, but not what’s on it.” Brian noticed her press a button, and _Heaven Is A Place On Earth_ started blasting through the speakers.

“Oh my god,” He whispered.

Raph cackled. “I know, it’s pretty good.”

He got through about thirty seconds of staring at the road before he was scream-singing with Raphaella. Really, Marius’ playlist was pretty damn good. Brian would have to commend him on it later.

* * *

After taking in an eldritch being, Brian supposed he should have been more prepared for weird things to happen, but he still paused when he found them sitting on the living room floor and staring at the ground. He looked around to see if anyone was nearby (Hopefully Marius, hopefully _not_ Jonny). Finding no one, he walked in.

Brian knelt down to get as close to eye level as he could. “Hey there, Lyf, what's up?”

“I'm studying the weave of this rug.”

“Ah. Is there a reason for it?”

“I find that when my mind is too full it helps to focus on something intricately simple. Wood grain is also very effective.”

Huh. Brian could understand that. He traced over the rug with them for a good five minutes before taking a deep breath and speaking. “If you don't mind my asking, what happened to you?” 

Brian _felt_ the air ripple. “I beg your pardon?”

“That sounded rather rude, I was just wondering what happened to make you the way you are with the… Eldritch stuff.”

He saw their eyes stumble over a section of the rug, the only sign that Brian had startled them. “I'm sorry, but that's a little personal.”

“Ah. I understand.” Brian stayed with them for a while longer to try and smooth things over, but mostly it was just awkward. He pat their shoulder before standing up (thoroughly making things worse) and left.

* * *

The next day was… slow. Agonizingly slow. Tim and Lyf had locked themselves away only God knew where in the flat, and everyone else had divided up to do their own things. Brian only really knew that Ivy was trying to decipher the photos of the book. He ended up baking a chocolate truffle pie out of boredom.

He hadn’t even taken off the apron when he realized he hadn’t seen Marius in a while. The doctor had been sticking around Brian’s place recently due to the fact that Lyf seemed to trust him the most, but he’d disappeared like a ghost. Brian wandered around the flat until he found Marius face down on the couch. For half a second, Brian had a panic attack and thought he was _dead_ until he noticed the rise and fall of his chest

“Hey, buddy,” Brian tried for an uplifting, positive tone but it came out much more awkward. He sat down in the small space Marius did not take up. “How are you doing?”

“Terrible.” He could barely make out the words from how muffled they were.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Marius rolled onto his side. “Ashes is being mean.”

“Okay?”

“I was talking to them about Lyf and how I thought they were kind of cute and they started teasing me for it.”

“Aw, you know Ashes doesn't mean any of that stuff.” Brian sat down, placing a hand on Marius’ shoulder. “They're just trying to have some fun with you.”

“It's kind of hard to have fun right now. I've seen more blood than I can handle for a lifetime and I'm a _doctor,_ and now I have to deal with these dumb feelings.” He sighed, leaning into Brian's touch. “Why does everything have to be so hard?”

“I don't know.” Brian hesitated for a second, then leaned down and pressed a kiss to Marius’ forehead. “We’re gonna take care of it though.”

* * *

All the lights were off in Jonny’s home when Brian pulled up. Not too irregular, Jonny was like some weird, neurotic night gremlin that hissed at the sight of daylight. He searched around for the house key and found it under a thin layer of soil in the fake plant Ivy had given him as a housewarming gift. Brian just wanted to check on him especially after… well, especially after the debacle on the first night. He really needed to smooth things over. 

He started to get a little worried when no one answered as he closed the door behind him. Usually Jonny would either yell something a little too obscene or scurry from a shadowy corner like the aforementioned neurotic night gremlin. Brian was just about to call for him when he heard muffled voices carrying through the wall. And one of them didn’t sound like his friends.

They grew clearer as he slunk in, silently picking up a half empty bottle of whiskey from a shelf in case he needed to attack someone. He wouldn’t actually do it, but the thought was nice.

“I’m not very fucking inclined to do anything for you,” Jonny snapped as Brian pressed his back against the wall next to the kitchen door. “You show up in the middle of the night, and I don’t much care for the way you’ve been treating my friends.”

“Oh, so they’re your friends now, are they?” Brian caught his breath when he heard Carmilla’s voice. 

_“Yes,_ they’re my friends, stop trying to play mind games with me. It’s not going to work.”

“Confident words coming from someone acting like a petulant child.”

“Fuck you.”

“Crass language isn’t befitting.”

“Stop treating me like a child!”

“I’ll stop treating you like a child when you start acting like an _adult._ You can either do this for me, or get the treatment you deserve.”

“I'm not going to keep doing the dirty work of a stupid demon bitch-!”

Brian heard the sharp sound of skin against skin, a soft gasp of pain, and the groan of furniture sliding across the floor in quick succession. His grip on the bottle tightens, but he can’t bring himself to move.

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” Carmilla said sternly. “You’re going to pull yourself together, get that athame and give it to me. I won’t bore someone with an attention span as short as yours the details of what will happen if you don’t, but rest assured, you won’t like it.” 

Brian could tell she left after that, even without seeing into the kitchen. Something in the air just shifts, perhaps humidity or temperature, but he still didn’t move. It’s not until Jonny’s breath has evened out that he even considers it, and even then he has to wait a minute.

“Knock knock!” He said as cheerfully as he could, rounding the corner. The light above the stove is on, and he can see a red tinge to the edges of Jonny’s eyes. He decided not to mention it until he did.

“What are you doing here?” Jonny’s voice still sounds uneven, but Brian could tell he thought it was covering it up well, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I came to check on you!” Okay, he needed to rein it in. Brian held up the bottle. “I thought maybe you’d want a drink?”

“Yea.” Jonny cleared his throat. “That, ah, sounds very nice right about now.”

They sit at the kitchen table in the near darkness and share the whiskey in silence. It’s not the first time they’ve done something like this, so he doesn’t think Jonny is too suspicious, but Brian’s heart is beating much faster than he’s trying to let on. In that heavy time, Brian felt more useless than ever before. He wanted to help, he really did he just…

He just couldn’t do anything of actual substance. Brian was composed empty promises he wanted to be true, but were as cold and empty as a metal shell. He kept his fingers wrapped around his glass to prevent them from shaking, ignoring how Jonny refused to meet his eyes. Would that have been different if Brian had intervened? Would either have them been _alive?_

Brian tried to let the burn of alcohol cover up that feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry, it's been a while since an update lol. back now tho, featuring sad brian!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd say i have no idea what i'm doing, but also i have an outline of the whole fic so technically i can't say that? next chapter is what i've been calling "the act break" so things are gettin pretty serious lads.

So, maybe Jonny shouldn't have waited two days to get started on that thing for Carmilla. He kind of wished they hadn't made Marius bury that body so he could get him to do it. That was a joke. 

Hah.

He went back with Brian after the argument with Carmilla, and as per usual he didn't argue. Jonny knew Brian liked to feel like he was doing something good, and maybe this was a little manipulative, but it was fine. The flat was a minefield, with Lyfrassir scrambling away once they caught wind of Jonny, and Tim constantly glaring at him, and Marius wouldn't _stop fucking smiling_.

“Lovely morning, isn't it?” Marius chirped.

“Fuck off,” Jonny mumbled, stabbing the cereal before him with his spoon. 

“So cranky! Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

Jonny pointed the spoon at him like a knife. “You're on thin ice, von Raum.”

“The silverware really gives your words the sharp edge they need.”

He would have lunged across the kitchen counter and gutted Marius with the spoon right then and there if it wasn’t for the sudden clattering of dishes directly to his left. Jonny looked over and saw Lyfrassir staring back with wide eyes and an armful of dishes next to an open (and almost empty) cabinet. 

“Hey there, bright eyes,” Marius said. “Whatcha doin’ there?”

Lyfrassir fumbled through all of the utensils in their arms and held one up. “Bowl.”

“That’s great.”

Jonny scoffed and continued to dig into his cereal. Marius had been _way_ too chipper recently. It was unsettling, and kind of annoying. But he couldn’t really worry about that right now, he had a heist to think about. He suspected that this was the last night before Carmilla started hounding him, and he really needed to get it finished.

* * *

He offered to sleep on the couch that night, just to make it easier to leave. Tim and Marius jumped at the opportunity to pass it off onto him, though Brian tried to be a mom about it and insist that he could be the one to take it, but eventually he caved. So, at about eleven thirty at night, Jonny silently made his way through the flat. He actually was pretty close to congratulating himself when he reached the front door.

“Where are you going?”

Jonny froze with his hand halfway to the door. Lyfrassir was suddenly standing next to them, blinking owlishly. Fuck, had they _teleported?_

“I’m just going to pick up some books,” Jonny said. “You know. For entertainment.”

“You told Brian you wouldn’t leave the flat without telling him. And it’s the middle of the night.”

“I didn’t tell Brian that.”

They tilted their head and shifted their eyes to the ceiling. “Yesterday morning at nine thirty four, Brian said ‘I really need you to not leave without telling anyone, I need to be able to keep track of everyone’ and you said ‘okay, okay, I promise now stop bothering me’.”

Jonny took a deep breath. “What the fuck was that?”

“Sometimes I have a really good memory and sometimes I don’t,” Lyfrassir shrugged.

“That’s not an answer, though. You understand that?”

“I’m not the one sneaking out at night like a high schooler trying to go to Stacy’s Halloween party, so I don't owe you one.”

Jonny pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright, cut the bullshit, what do you want?”

“I want to go with you.”

One of these days Lyfrassir was going to say something and Jonny wouldn't get whiplash from it. Not today though. “Beg your pardon?”

“You have a demon on your back. It seems stupid to me for you to go out all by yourself when you could very likely be killed.” Lyfrassir hesitated, then continued. “And I really need something to distract me right now.”

Jonny thought about this for a second, grimacing. “You're just going to tell Brian if I go without you, huh?”

“That is the plan, yes.”

He sighed and opened the front door. “After you.”

Lyfrassir brightened. They walked down to Jonny’s car together, purposefully not making eye contact. He drove for a good five minutes before Lyfrassir broke the silence.

“So what exactly are we doing? The books thing was a pretty bad lie.”

Jonny dug his thumbnail into the seam of the wheel. “Carmilla wants me to take an athame from some asshole’s private collection.”

“An athame? As in a ceremonial dagger?”

“That's the one.”

He saw them rest an elbow up on the window’s edge. “Maybe it's just me but ‘demon’ and ‘ritualistic knife’ seems like a bad combination.”

“So does ‘person hiding a dead body’ and ‘frequent cosmically-induced blackouts’.”

“... Yea, okay.” The conversation lapsed for another few minutes and Jonny nearly drove his head through the wheel when they spoke again. “Why didn't you tell anyone about this?”

“Because they don't know what's good for them,” he snapped. “They don't _tell_ me anything when it happens, and look how it always turns out. Marius had to hide a body twice, Raphaella got our best chance at survival burned to a crisp, and no one can help Tim because he won't talk except to make snarky comments. I've been dealing with Carmilla one on one for a while longer than they have, so I know what I'm doing.”

Jonny was staring at the road hard enough to burn a hole through the asphalt. He saw Lyfrassir shift in his peripheral vision. “One on one?”

“If you make me say one more word about this, I will drive both of us both off a cliff.”

Lyfrassir finally took the hint and shut up for the rest of the car ride.

* * *

Once Jonny was outside in the cold night air staring up at a rather intimidating building, he was a little less sure about this heist business. He maybe should have spent the last few days planning, because now he had no idea what to do.

“So where is it?” Lyfrassir asked.

“Well, Lyfrassir‒”

“Lyf,” they corrected.

“Right.” Jonny grimaced, scanning for an open window or something. “So the thing is, I don’t know.”

“You’re the picture of preparation.” They hummed. “First or second floor, you think?”

He sighed in exasperation. “I have no fucking clue. I don’t even know how to get in.”

“It seems it’s good that I came along.” Lyf glanced around. “Alright. I’m willing to extend my services to you as long as you don’t get weird about it.”

“By all means, be my guest.”

The look Lyfrassir gave him had a sharp edge of suspicion as though they believed Jonny was going to shove them against the wall again. They walked up to the side door before them and laid a hand on the solid metal. Jonny watched as it warped beneath their touch, folding in like stretching cellophane. With a very quiet _pop_ Lyfrassir just melded through the wall. Five seconds later, the door swung inwards, revealing the stairwell they now stood in.

“Satisfactory?” 

“Show off,” Jonny mumbled, pushing past them.

The inside of the building was dark, lit only by the street lights through the window. Jonny could hardly see anything, and at one point Lyf grabbed him by the collar to stop him from walking into a concrete pillar.

“We're getting nowhere with this!” He hissed.

“Maybe you should have prepared more.”

“Hindsight is twenty twenty, Edda.” Jonny braced a hand against the nearest wall to keep himself from getting set adrift in the darkness. Even through the shadows he could see the way Lyf’s lips had pursed into a thin line. “I wouldn't have let you come if I knew you were going to be a nag about everything.”

“Oh?” Their voice was laced with acid. “I'm sure you would have loved staring at a locked door all night.” 

“Shut it.”

“You know what I think?” Lyf asked. “I think that you hate not being in control, and in order to trick yourself into thinking you still have some you threw yourself into this alone, and now you're trying to retain that in the face of all your plans falling apart by insulting me.”

They loomed over him, which didn't make sense because Jonny remembered them being the same height as him. That thought made him realize that they were standing up slightly on the pads of their feet to be taller and, okay, this was the wrong situation but that was kind of cute. In a pouting little kid sort of way. 

“And I think you're reading too much into the situation.” Jonny almost, _almost_ made it through the full sentence without cracking, but just before he was done his voice wavered, took the wrong edge, and he can tell Lyf has caught onto the scent from the way their eyes narrow.

The moment was broken when the peripheral light of a torch ghosted over them. Their eyes met, wide with fear. They were about to be caught by one of the security guards. This was it, Carmilla would find Jonny in jail and kill him.

“Sorry,” Lyf said. Jonny didn't even have time to ask them what for before they threw their arms around him.

Something that Jonny wanted to call wings extended from their back, though that was only for lack of a better term. Maybe “sheet of darkness?” The texture made it no easier to pinpoint, looking almost slimy and wet. Whatever it was, it wrapped around them like a cocoon, and Jonny bit down on his tongue for fear of the guard hearing them. Being in such close proximity, he could feel how drastically Lyf's body temperature had dropped and their slow, deliberate breathing, like each inhale was an effort.

At the end, Lyf stumbled backwards like they were attached to a rubber band that had just snapped back. The diffused shadows of the building returned, and the concentrated darkness at Lyf's back disappeared in a flash.

“What did you _do?”_ Jonny asked.

“Ah, nothing,” they panted. “Just a little warping of space. Too complicated to explain, really.”

However they'd done it, it was apparent it took a lot out of them. Jonny took them by the elbow. “Come on, the first floor is a bust. Let's go rest in the stairwell before checking upstairs.”

They don't argue with Jonny as he led them back the way they came. Lyf stopped him from taking a wrong turn or two, and soon they were back in the stairwell lit faintly by the exit sign above the door. Jonny tucked Lyf into the space below the stairs and sat next to them.

“Real handy, those powers of yours,” Jonny commented. “Thanks for saving me from that guard.”

“Mhm.” He felt them twitch. “Don't mention it.”

Ah, fuck. He was bad at this feeling stuff. “Are you okay?” Jonny tripped over his words, but he managed to get them out. 

“Yea, it's just, um… Using my powers is a little risky. It becomes easier to use, harder to not give into, you know?”

“Sure,” Jonny lied. “I’m sorry you have to extend yourself so much for someone you hate, but it’s been very useful.”

They paused. “I don’t hate you, Jonny.”

“You could have fooled me with the way you’ve been avoiding me before this. Besides‒” He waved a hand nonchalantly. “‒I don’t blame you for it. I wasn’t a shining beacon of kindness when you showed up.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. You’re just, um…” Lyf made a vague gesture at him. “Just…”

“Insufferable?”

“No.”

“Menacing?”

“No.” 

“Aggressive?”

 _“No!”_ Lyf made an anxious noise and quickly lowered their voice again. “You’re intimidating, but not entirely in a bad way! Like I said, it’s complicated.”

Oh. Jonny tried to parse out what that meant, but eventually he just took it at the value it was given to him. He rolled back his shoulders and straightened his spine. “In any case, I’m sorry I made myself to be so ‘intimidating’. I should have approached the whole thing gentler.”

They sat there under the stairwell in silence for a few minutes. As time passed, Jonny heard Lyf’s breathing even out. The exit sign edged everything with red light, giving it an eerie atmosphere.

“Alright, I'll tell you,” Lyf said quietly.

Jonny started. “What? Tell me what?”

“The starting incident?” Lyf swallowed. Oh. “I said I was an inspector? I was at a crime scene with a squad of others. It was, hah, real gruesome. A whole train car of people just dead, and no one knew how. I was accessing the black box to get the footage when I-” their breath hitched. “-Released something. It's really hazy after that, like a dream, but I remember just… Standing there as everyone else tore each other apart. Or something else did, maybe? It's hard to tell how much was a hallucination.”

“Christ…”

Lyf chuckled quietly. “Well, it was written off as a bomb left over from the previous attack. That didn't sit right with some people, but no one could prove otherwise. The black box was corrupted and I was considered too unstable for my testimony to be trustworthy. Which I understand, I was a wreck those days, not that I'm much better now.”

“So, what, the thing that was in the black box is in _you_ now?”

“I don't know. I can hear it, sometimes, usually in my dreams. I know it's what controls me when I black out.” Lyf exhaled, tapping a finger against their leg. “You probably hate me more now, huh?”

“... No, actually.” Jonny was just as surprised as Lyf was. “I know what it's like to have a supernatural entity control you. When we did the ritual to summon Carmilla I couldn't stop myself from saying the incantation. I know that I'm the reason we have to deal with her.”

They looked at him sadly. “Earlier you said you'd been dealing with Carmilla ‘one on one.’ What exactly does that mean?”

Dammit. Lyf had opened up so now it was only fair Jonny did the same. “She's been stopping by at times when I'm alone. It's been mitigated by Brian being a mother hen, but she squeezes it into the schedule.” He barked out a short laugh. “She just tries to mess with my head and get me to tell her things about the others, is all. Plus sending me on this lame mission.” Jonny almost stopped there. That's all he was obligated to share, really, but this little feeling nagged at him, and suddenly it was pouring out. “I almost told her about you, once.”

Lyf blinked in confusion. “Huh?”

“She came by the night after you woke up. She was really mad for some reason. Not specifically at me, but I was just kind of the one there.” He cleared his throat. “Anyways, for a second I thought that maybe if I told her about you, she'd be interested and would stop being angry. I don't know much about how you or Carmilla work, but I figured she could use you in some way.”

“Oh.” Their voice was small, weak in the vertical space of the stairwell.

“I didn't though,” Jonny explained quickly. “It wouldn't be worth the kind of power it gave her and… And even then I didn't want you to get hurt.”

Jonny remembered the guilt he had felt after he forced Lyf into a breakdown. As suspicious as he had been, the terror and pain in their eyes had not been his intention.

“Well, thanks.” They laughed, only half forced. “I don't know what I would do having a demon _and_ eldritch beings on my plate.” A moment passed, then their hand settled on his. “I would have understood, though.”

That little touch sparked a paradigm shift. Jonny recognized several things in Lyf. Marius’ self-sacrificing attitude, Brian’s soft tones, Ashes’ calm-but-joking approach, but they weren't Marius, or Brian, or Ashes, or any of the others. They were Lyf, and for a second Jonny saw a lot of beauty in that.

“I think I’m good enough to move again,” Lyf said, rising to their feet. “The collection must be on the second floor.”

“Well, good thing we’re in the stairwell.” Jonny tried to make it sound joking, but it just ended up sounding awkward. Jesus christ.

The upstairs was much easier to navigate than the first floor. One, there were much more windows to let outside light in, and two, it was more open-plan so there were less walls for Jonny to nearly run into. The glass cases full of old looking stone things were also very promising for their endeavors.

“What’s our athame look like?” Lyf asked, studying what seemed to be a vase.

“Obsidian handle. She said that’s all I needed to identify it.”

“How considerate.”

Jonny wandered between the cases, stopping occasionally to squint at something that seemed knife-shaped. “I feel like a lot of this stuff should be in a museum. Or in the hands of their original cultures.”

“There’s always the type who will buy anything out from under people if they can afford it. It’s the novelty, I think.”

The thought crossed Jonny’s mind that if this guy had one demonic athame, maybe he had more artefacts of infernal origin. He _really_ hoped he wouldn’t have to come back here.

“Found it!” Lyf crowed. Jonny turned to see them melting away one of the glass panels around it (he supposed it said a lot that he considered this normal by now) and watching it carefully. “Do you think there’s an alarm attached to it?”

“If anything there was an alarm attached to the glass, which you just banished to another dimension or something, so I think we’re good.”

“Fair point.” They reached into the case, wrapped their fingers around the hilt and‒

Recoiled as if it had burned them. Lyf cradled their hand close to their chest, making a small noise of pain.

“What happened?” Jonny rushed over.

“I‒I don’t know, it felt like it shocked me?” Their eyes seemed unfocused all of the sudden. “Or burned?”

He pulled Lyf’s hand away from them at their own behest. Jonny would have said that their fingers were burned, if normal burns didn’t glow and shift in color. He grimaced. 

“Does that always happen for you?”

“No? I don’t think so. No.” That didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. 

Jonny glanced back at the athame. It was just sitting there, completely unseemingly. The blade wasn’t even sharp, it was made out of some kind of pale marble. There wasn’t any kind of sign that it would have been able to hurt Lyf like that. 

“What are you doing?” Lyf asked as he reached for it.

“Testing something out.”

He hesitated at the last second, hovering above the dark obsidian of the hilt, then doubled down and grabbed it. Jonny waited for pain to shoot up his arm, but there was nothing. 

“Huh.” Jonny looked to Lyf. “Weird.”

“Yea, real‒really weird.”

“Lyf? Are you okay?”

“Yes, things are just‒ it’s very loud right now?” They swallowed hard. “It didn’t really like me touching that.”

Jonny decided he didn’t want them to elaborate on that. He quickly stashed the athame in his jacket. “Alright, let’s get out of here before it gets ugly.”

“There’s a security guard heading up here,” Lyf mentioned.

_“What?”_

“I’ve kind of been keeping an bead on the‒on the guard’s placements after our first run in, which admittedly has been taking a lot out of me, but, um, yea, they’ll be here soon.”

“Shit.” He grabbed Lyf and ran to one of the few hallways branching off. He tried one of the doors and fuck, yea, locked. 

“The third one on the right is a storage closet,” Lyf whispered.

“What the fuck are you using, x-ray vision?”

“Not important.”

Jonny tore the door open and pulled them in. Lyf’s breathing had returned to that weird, forced pattern from earlier. From the little quirks Jonny had been starting to pick up on, that was not the best of signs. 

“Lyf, you need to calm down,” Jonny ordered. “If you’re not quiet that guy is going to hear us.”

“I am calm, I’m very calm, I’m so calm right now.”

“Okay, what do you need me to do right now? What do you need to calm down?”

“I said I _am_ calm!”

Jonny was so bad at this. He was clearly making things worse. “Okay, I’m sorry.”

Lyf leaned against one of the walls not lined with shelves, running their hands back through their hair. “I have to tell you something.”

“I’m really not sure if this is the best time.”

“No, it’s really important, and I don’t want to forget‒”

“If it’s that important you won’t forget!”

“I _will!”_ Jonny didn’t know if it was Lyf or himself, but a shot of panic raced through him and it was enough to get him to stop talking. It was probably Lyf. They took one deep breath. “I love you.”

Holy shit. “Lyf‒”

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” Lyf babbled, tears pricking at the corners of their eyes. “I need to say that because if I don't, it'll make me forget and I don't want to forget what this feels like. I _love_ you.”

Jonny's brain very nearly came to a complete stop. Something about the way they said those words was so sincere it made his heart ache, which was… new.

“I'm so scared,” they continued. “I love all of you and it knows, and I don't know if it hates you for it or hates me but it wants to get rid of it, and if I lose my mind tonight I need you to know that.”

He didn’t know what he could possibly say. They’d had a lot of emotional moments tonight already, but this was something else entirely. But of course, he did need Lyf to shut up, and they showed no sign of stopping their tearful rant, so Jonny surged forward and swallowed those words for them.

Lyf immediately relaxed as their lips connected. The shoulders they had squared nearly up to their ears dropped, and Jonny felt some of their weight lean into where his hands were on their chest. It was intoxicating, really, how quickly and completely they handed themself over.

He pulled back only a little bit. He could still feel their breath on his face. “Are you okay with this?”

“I love you,” they said again, but this time with force and assurance. 

He was definitely going to rub it in Marius’ face that he had been the first one to make a move.

They stayed quiet after that. Lyf still wasn’t breathing right, but it was quiet enough Jonny felt confident they wouldn’t be caught. He kept his hands on their chest mostly as a reminder to himself that, yea, this was a thing that was happening. Yesterday Jonny probably would have laughed in his face if he told him. 

“Are they gone?” Jonny whispered after about ten minutes.

“I think.”

“Let’s take the risk.”

The trip back down the stairwell and to the car was silent. The athame sat heavy in the pocket of Jonny’s coat, introducing new problems and implications just through its presence. But funny enough, that was only one of the problems on Jonny’s plate right now.

“So.” Jonny muttered once they were sitting in the front seat. “I think we’re supposed to… talk about that.”

“Yea,” Lyf agreed. “Probably.”

“The whole time?”

“Well, there’s been kind of a build up.” 

“And. ‘All of you’?”

They flushed, turning to face away from Jonny. “Yea.”

“We’re doing a right well job of having a conversation.”

“It’s late. Maybe we should try talking about this in the morning. _After_ we’ve driven away from the place we just stole something from.”

“Good point.” Jonny turned the key in the ignition and put the car into gear. Life was much less complicated when he didn’t have to communicate his feelings.


	12. Chapter 12

Raphaella may have already hidden one body, but when someone knocked at her door at ungodly hours of the morning she did contemplate getting ready to hide another.

Still, Jonny and Lyf looked even more tired than she did when she answered, so soon enough they were all sitting in Raphaella’s living room. Lyf had their hands stuffed into their coat pockets even at such an odd angle and for the first time Jonny looked more exhausted than angry.

“Do you want me to put a blanket down or something?” Raphaella asked. “Steve was on that couch.”

“Steve?” Lyf asked. 

“The first dead body we had to hide.”

“Oh.”

“I think it’s fine,” Jonny interrupted. “Believe it or not, we actually came here to talk to you about something, Raph.”

“And what would that be?”

Jonny pulled a dagger from his pocket and set it down on the coffee table. “Carmilla asked me to get this and I don’t know what it is.”

“Ah.” She reached forward and picked it up, noting how Lyf flinched when she touched it. “Do you… know anything about it besides that Carmilla wanted it?”

“Yea, actually.” Jonny turned to them. “You can show her.” Lyf made no moves, and Jonny’s gaze actually _softened._ “She’s just going to help.”

Lyf slowly removed their hands from their pockets and held them out to Raphaella. The fingers of their right hand had faintly glowing blue marks, like radioactive stains. As she studied them, they morphed to a soft lilac purple, then red, then orange. Interesting.

“Is that normal for you?” She asked

“That’s what I asked,” Jonny said.

Lyf drew their hands band again, curling in on themself. “No, this doesn’t happen. I just… touched it and it burned me. At least, I think it’s a burn. And the, ah‒” They gestured to the ceiling. “‒thing in my head really didn’t like it.”

Raphaella frowned. “Didn’t like it how?”

Jonny and Lyf shared a look that Raphaella couldn’t quite understand. What the hell had happened? And also why did they suddenly not hate each other?

“I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” Lyf finally whispered.

“Raph, can I talk to you in private?” Jonny requested, standing from the couch. “There’s just a few things I want to clear up.”

“Sure. Lyf, you can just… um…” 

“If you leave me alone for more than three minutes I’m going to fall asleep,” Lyf said very seriously. 

Jonny patted their shoulder. “That’s fine. See you in the morning.”

She and Jonny went down the hall into her bedroom. The door clicked shut, and Raphaella held up the athame. “So this.”

“Yes. This.” Jonny sighed. “Look, I know I didn’t tell you but I was kind of going through some things.”

“Was?”

“If you really want to put that fine a point on it Raph, yes, I'm still going through things but we all are so the point is moot. The real problem right now is figuring out what's with this thing hopefully before Carmilla shows up.”

“Fine.” She crossed her arms. “Care to tell me anymore about the Lyf situation?”

Jonny's eyes darted over to the door, then back to Raphaella. “So they told me about what made them… the way they are. The gritty details aren’t really important at the moment, but long story short they released an eldritch monster, watched a train car full of people ‘tear each other apart’ and now that eldritch monster is just kind of hanging out inside them.” His eyes narrowed at nothing for a moment. “I still haven't figured out how any of that relates to them getting burned by the knife.” 

“That's quite a bit.” Raphaella looked down at the knife in her hand. It was rather strange for an athame, the dull marble blade marking it more as a sculpture than utility. Then again, if Carmilla wanted it then it could surely do something. “I imagine it's definitely magical if it affected them in such a way. I didn't even know something _could_ hurt them before now.”

“Do you think that's what it's for, then? Hurting supernatural creatures?”

She hummed noncommittally. “Maybe. I wouldn't put money on it. Carmilla doesn't seem too interested in other such entities. Plus if only touching it did that to Lyf, it goes to follow it would do the same to her and she'd want it destroyed instead of delivered.” She twisted it, watching her bedroom light reflect off the polished surface. “I'll do some more research. This kind of thing is more up Ivy’s alley, though.”

“You were closer. And Brian said he’s been working on something with her, so I figured she’d be busy.”

Raphaella set the blade down on her desk. “I’m going to stay up and do some searching around. You can go back and get some sleep if you’d like. It sounds like you’ve had a night.” 

“Thank you, Raph. That means a lot.” He hesitated for a moment. “I can stay up and help if you want.”

Oh, that was… surprisingly sweet of him. Even so, he had heavy bags under his eyes and looked like he would pass out on the floor of her bedroom if she let him stay. She smiled and placed a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. Thank you, though.”

He nodded, and left her room. The door shut softly behind him, and Raphaella sat down at her desk and took out her laptop. She spent some hours searching around for information that even sounded vaguely like the athame, writing it down to sort through likelihood later. Eventually, her brain felt like it was turning to mush and Raphaella decided to go out to check on the two in the living room

She found Jonny sitting on the floor with his back resting against the couch, Lyf curled up into a ball above him. They were both fast asleep and Raphaella smiled despite herself. So maybe they had interrupted her sleep, but they were rather cute like this. 

She picked up Lyf's coat from where it had been hung over the back of the couch and draped it over them like a blanket. She'd have to bandage up their hand in the morning. As for Jonny, she grabbed one of the extra pillows and waited for him to shift in his sleep to quickly slip it under his head. Didn't want him to complain about a crick in his neck from his own poor planning. 

Raphaella considered returning to her room to sleep, but the idea seemed cold and uninviting. So she took one of the spare blankets and huddled up into the half of the couch Lyf didn't take up. She’d finish up her research in the afternoon.

* * *

It was funny how much easier it was to get everyone in one place now that their lives were being constantly threatened. Still, every sitting around in silence as they waited for Raph to speak was a little unnerving. At least Marius’ occasional jokes did something to alleviate the tension, as little as people reacted to them. Finally, Raph sighed. She had to get this over with sometime.

Raphaella set the athame down on the table. “This is the Devil’s Brand.”

Ashes frowned. “And where the hell did we get this?”

Jonny had opened his mouth to respond, but Raphaella beat him to the punch. “Jonny and Lyf stole it from someone the other night for Carmilla.” The table broke out into worried murmurs. “Yes, we can all get mad at him later, but right now we have to be concerned with what it does.”

“What _does_ it do?” Marius asked tentatively.

Here we go. “Well, from the research I did… And you have to understand that it's really folklore and anecdotal evidence… It ‘marks’ humans.”

Silence. Brian spoke this time. “And what does that mean?”

“It sets a one way connection between the marked and the one that marked them. They can drain the marked’s life force, control certain functions and cause some general pain.” She glanced to where Lyf sat with Ivy and added quietly. “I think that’s why it burned you. You’re already claimed by outer gods.”

More silence, this time filled with quiet horror. Raphaella cleared her throat and picked the Brand back up. 

“We're not really going to give that to her, right?” Brian's voice was low, unreadable. 

“I don't think we have a choice,” Jonny replied. “I mean, she'll just kill us if we don't.”

“She hasn't really killed anyone, she's just bluffing‒”

“She killed me.” Everyone turned to Tim, falling silent to listen to his quiet words. Though Raphaella had to strain to hear him, she could feel the rage seething just beneath the surface. “Even if she brings you back, it's not a gift. It's living hell.”

Brian faltered for just a second under Tim's pointed glare. “But… But this is just the same, isn't it? We can't give her all that power and control. We're already doing all this, how much further is she going to make us go?”

Raphaella stared at the athame in her hand. “Maybe if we just play along, we’ll get an opportunity‒”

“We can’t keep waiting! We have to _do_ something!”

Marius crossed around the table to take Brian’s hand. “Hey, just calm down, we can figure this out.” His eyes darted around to everyone at the table. “We can talk about this after we’ve all had time to process and calm down, right?”

Tim opened his mouth to say something, but Ashes interrupted before he could get the first syllable out. “That sounds like a _great_ idea, Marius. No point in just yelling at each other over nothing.”

As people started filtering out of the room, murmuring between each other, Raphaella noticed Brian was staring at Lyf. There was something incredibly uncharacteristic about the look in his eyes, far colder and more calculating than Raphaella had ever seen him. And then just like that, he had turned around and followed Jonny out. Hopefully he was okay. He had to be, he was… well, he was Brian.

She gripped the hilt of the Devil’s Brand tighter. Carmilla would be showing up for it sooner or later, and all she could hope for was that it would go smoother than the other times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it only took 12 chapters for plot to start happening huh. Or at least for it to start coming together. anyways what up with brian huh that shits wild.


	13. Chapter 13

Ivy looked between Brian, Marius and Raphaella. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife, but the only one of those that they had here was the one hanging from Raphaella’s hip, and Ivy wasn't too keen on using the demon blade.

“I don’t suppose you brought us all together to play a board game?” Marius asked with a forced kind of cheer.

“No, I didn’t.” Even though Ivy knew Marius wasn’t _really_ expecting board games, his face fell a little bit. 

“Why us?” Ivy asked. “Why aren’t any of the others here?”

“What do you think is our best chance at beating Carmilla?” Brian said, ignoring Ivy’s question. Ivy, Marius and Raphaella all looked at each other.

Marius sighed, and shrugged. “A trap? I don’t know. We can’t really… send her back where she came from.”

There was something about that phrase “where she came from” that nagged at the back of Ivy’s mind, but she couldn’t quite place it, and before she could give it much thought, Raphaella was speaking. 

“Another supernatural creature would be my best guess,” she suggested. “However, we don’t exactly know any, and our last summoning didn’t end very well.”

Ivy saw how Brian’s eyes flicked to Marius, just for a second. “Well…” he said carefully. “We do know someone touched by some outer gods.”

And just liked that, Marius’ uneasy smile had dropped. “No.”

“Marius‒”

“Absolutely not.” He scoffed, not even looking at Brian anymore. “They're not a wild _dog_ for you to just sic on her. It’s not even a smart risk, they… every time they use their powers there’s a risk of them going off the deep end and straight into the cosmic void, which sucks for us too, might I add!”

“You don’t actually know that.”

“I do, because I _talk_ to them! I can’t believe you’d do this after I told you‒” Marius faltered. “... I’m here because I told you that, aren’t I?”

Brian grimaced. “Raphaella and Ivy know the most about the Devil’s Brand and Carmilla, and you have the stablest relationship with Lyfrassir to convince them to do it.”

“I must confess, I don’t really like the idea of sacrificing Lyfrassir to some eldritch beings either,” Raphaella added.

“Oh, come on!” Brian growled under his breath and ran a hand back through his hair. “This is the way we get through this with the least amount of suffering. We’ve known them for what, a few weeks? If that? The only things we _know_ about them is that they’ve killed someone and that they’re apparently willing to steal things!”

“All things we’ve done at this point,” Marius glared.

“It’s more complicated than that, and you know it. Besides, we haven’t killed anyone!” Brian turned to Ivy. “You’re on my side, aren’t you, Ivy?”

She blinked at the sudden attention turned to her. “I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “I don’t really have an opinion on Lyfrassir yet.”

“So we're at an impasse,” Raphaella concluded. 

Brian's eyes turned desperate. “Please, Ivy, just think about what I said. I'm only trying to save everyone.”

She thought about it for a moment. He was right, at least in one way. Without Lyfrassir, they'd have to take on Carmilla head on, which would result in most if not all of them getting hurt or killed. Using Lyfrassir technically resulted in the least amount of overall pain. But Marius brought up some logical points about the downsides of handing outer gods a vessel on a platter. A sort of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Plus, she really just did not know Lyfrassir enough to cast judgement on their life.

Someone knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an answer, so Ivy wasn’t particularly surprised to see Jonny. Lyfrassir hovered in the hallway behind him, and she saw Brian’s eyes widen.

“What’s up?” Brian asked a little too quickly.

“Carmilla’s going to be here soon so I came to pick up the Brand and drop off Lyfrassir,” he said. Brian visibly relaxed at the confirmation that they hadn’t overheard anything. “I figured we didn’t want to test our luck by throwing another person into the mix.”

“That does sound like a good idea,” Raphaella agreed. It seemed like no one was going to mention their previous debate to Jonny, so Ivy figured that she wouldn’t either.

“Well then, let’s go!” Ivy whipped around to see Marius already grinning. It was… disconcerting how quickly he had switched from his distressed state to one so bright. “No point in waiting, might as well get it over with!”

Raphaella slipped the Devil’s Brand out from her belt and offered it out to Jonny. “I’ll stay here with Lyfrassir. We probably shouldn’t be splitting up in more than groups of two at this point.”

Jonny nodded and accepted it. He turned to leave, and Ivy shared one last look with Brian before following him out.

Ashes and Tim were already waiting out in the living room when they joined. The waiting was the worst part. No one seemed to want to talk, and as much as Ivy wanted to break the silence, she couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be instigative or depressing. So they just sat there. Waiting.

The front door opened and shut, and Ivy tensed as she heard the sound of footsteps down the hallway. Carmilla rounded the corner, a lab coat splattered with some dark, unidentifiable subject draped over her arm.

“Nice of you to use the door this time,” Marius quipped cheerfully. The entire room held its breath in wait for Carmilla’s response. 

“Yes, I figured it would be a nice change of patterns,” Carmilla replied. Her eyes swept over everyone and then landed on Jonny. “I don’t remember discussing everyone being here during the exchange.”

“Well, here they are. Sorry things aren’t going exactly according to plan.”

Carmilla held out a hand without another word. Jonny glanced at each of the others in turn, sighed, and placed the Devil’s Brand in her palm. She studied it, turning it over a few times and smiling.

“Thank you, Jonathan.” Carmilla held the athame up as if to get better lighting. “I’m guessing you’re very curious about it.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s rather ingenious, the way it was created,” She mused. “It looks more like a decoration than anything dangerous. A stone carving. It’s very unfortunate for you that there’s more to it.”

“What’s that supposed to‒”

She plunged the dagger into Jonny's chest and Ivy started processing everything in short bursts.

Jonny stumbled back into one of the chairs, clutching his chest as Tim lunged for Carmilla and Ashes reached for their pocket. She disappeared, taking the athame with her.

Brian lowered him to the floor as Marius yelled for someone to get first aid supplies.

Ivy was in the bathroom, digging around for what they needed. In the mirror she could see her neutral, set expression, but her hands shook so badly she dropped a bottle of antiseptic.

Jonny was still on the floor, gasping like a fish out of water, but Marius was muttering over and over how it didn't make sense, there wasn't a wound. There should be a wound, he said.

Raphaella burst into the room, Lyfrassir close in tow. They both looked horrified.

As she realized Jonny wasn't going to _die_ , it was easier to be there, but it wasn't made easier from the way Jonny's face twisted with pain. There had to be a way to stop this. Ivy ran through the information on the Devil’s Brand that Raph had given her, but now it was all jumbled up and useless in her head.

“What’s going on?” Raphaella asked frantically. “What’s happening to him?”

“I don’t know!” Brian was flitting from Jonny’s side to Marius’ like a frightened bird. “She just stabbed him with the Brand, but there’s no blood, and… oh, God.”

Ivy just stood there, clutching the roll of bandages Marius had discarded. Something, there had to be something she could do besides watching Jonny spasm against the floor. She vaguely registered Lyfrassir nudging past her and kneeling on the floor with Marius.

They took one of Jonny’s hands into theirs, doubling over as he gasped and finally stopped moving, completely unconscious. The room was deathly quiet now, the only sound Lyfrassir’s shaky breaths. 

“Lyfrassir?” Marius whispered. “What did you do?”

“Stopped it.” They winced. “Can someone help me carry him to a bed?”

Ivy was the first to move, desperate to do _something_. She looped her arms under Jonny, and together she and Lyfrassir lifted him up. She also took note of how Lyfrassir was very careful to avoid touching her. As they left, she heard the living room erupt into arguments behind them.

After nearly tripping once or twice, they get Jonny to the bedroom and set him down. “Can you get a chair?” Lyfrassir requested. “I’m going to be here a while.”

Ivy nodded and hurried away. She didn’t really know what was going on, but if Lyfrassir was stopping whatever was going on with Jonny, she was happy to play gopher for a little while. Ivy avoided the living room and all of the shouting coming from it.

Lyfrassir looked like they’d lost a week of sleep over the course of five minutes. They sat down, still holding Jonny’s hand. Ivy reached for their shoulder to comfort them, thank them, but they flinched away.

“You really shouldn't touch me right now,” Lyf said. Ivy drew back her hand. “You'll just feel all this pain, and it's not that pleasant.”

“It hurts, then?”

They close their eyes, nodding. “It's not really _that_ bad, though. I've been in pain for a while now, so by doing this I'm really just keeping the amount of people hurting the same.”

Ivy considered this. “How does it work?”

“It’s like an electrical circuit, except the electricity is pain.” They shifted around. “It’s got to go somewhere, so it just goes to the next person. I guess I could theoretically just… remove it, but, um, this feels weird and I think I’d break something.”

_“Break something”_ was an interesting phrase to use, but Ivy figured they would have elaborated if they wanted to in the first place. When the conversation lapsed, Ivy could hear everyone yelling in the other room once again.

“We haven’t been around each other a lot, hm?” Lyfrassir said.

“I suppose not,” Ivy replied if just to talk over the fighting. “I’ve mostly been working on trying to understand what Carmilla wants us to do.”

“That’s admirable.” They snorted. “I haven’t done much except help Jonny steal the Brand.”

“You’re helping right now,” she pointed out.

“I guess so.” Lyfrassir got this wistful, distant kind of look, just for a second. “You clearly care a lot about the others.”

“... Yes.” Ivy _did_ care about the others. That wasn’t so weird, was it? 

Why was Ivy getting so defensive over this?

“Lyfrassir?” she began.

“Yes?”

“Why are you doing all this for us?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re getting… hurt by helping us. Right now, for starters, but Marius told me that every time you use your powers you risk losing yourself, yet you use them so freely, and for _us_. What makes you do it?”

Lyfrassir thought about it, or at least that’s what Ivy assumed they were doing. “Atonement, for one thing. I’ve been forced to do bad things with these powers, so I figure I should do some good things with them. And, believe it or not, I really like all of you.” They flinched. “Sorry, ah, brief flare up in pain there. Anyways, if there’s something I can do to stop you from getting hurt, I’ll do it.”

They started humming, and that seemed to be the end of that. Ivy joined in to drown out the sound of the world falling in on itself just outside the door.


	14. Chapter 14

When Ashes woke up in the morning, they removed themself from the pile of people they had fallen asleep in and went to the store. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea to go out on their own after the ordeal the night before, but they needed the walk and the fresh air. 

The cashier looks down at all of the items that Ashes placed on the counter. Their eyes met for a few seconds, and Ashes silently dared them to comment. She sighed, and started scanning in the items.

“Early morning, huh?” Ashes mumbled. 

“Mhm,” the cashier hummed in response. “Do you… want a bag for all this?”

“That’ll be great, yea.”

Ashes left with an armful of merchandise and a little thing nagging at the back of their mind. So maybe they’d never been one for conversation anyways, but there was something about that exchange that had left a heavy stone in their stomach. It was difficult to say those few words, like there was an entire ocean that Ashes had to shout across. They knew it was because the thing with Carmilla had distanced them from anyone not inside their friend group, but what worried them was if it was going to be like this forever. 

The flat was still dead silent when they returned. Ashes nudged the door shut behind them, calculating where would be the best place to stash their newly procured goods. As they walked past the kitchen, they noticed… _someone_ standing in it. It was hard to tell who. The dim morning light did little to illuminate the room, and the lights weren’t on. The best Ashes could tell was that their back was to them.

“Hello?” they called.

The person whipped around so fast that Ashes nearly dropped their bags in an attempt to grab for the lighter in their pocket, as if that would have done anything. 

“Hello, Ashes!” Marius chirped. “How are you this fine, _fine_ morning?”

Well, that wasn’t what they expected. “Um, Marius?”

“That’s not an answer to my question!”

“I’m doing fine,” they said slowly. Carefully. “How about you?”

“Pretty good! I thought about making breakfast for everyone, but I didn’t want to wake them up with all the racket. Must’ve given you a bit of a shock to just see me standing in here like a creeper, huh?”

“Just a bit. Did anything happen while I was gone?”

“Nope,” Marius said, popping the “p” an all too dramatic amount. “I think I’m the only one awake right now.”

“Right.”

They lifted the bags and set them on the counter. Marius may have been acting strange, but they had other things to worry about. Namely one thing, that had been convulsing on the floor last night

“Feel free to get started on breakfast,” they said. “I'm sure the others will appreciate it. It’s not ungodly early anymore.”

Marius turned around before Ashes could get a look at his reaction. Oh, well. They’ll deal with it later. Instead, they walked to the hallway. It seemed to stretch on for forever, but they still ended up at the bedroom door all too quickly. They listened for a moment. The other side of the door was as silent as the rest of the flat, save for the new, quiet clattering in the kitchen from Marius. 

Ashes opened the door as quietly as they could. Even so, Lyf flinched awake. They blinked at them, eyebrows knit together in a frown. Ashes waved, hoping it didn’t look as awkward as it felt.

“Hey, any updates?” Ashes asked.

“Huh?” Lyf sounded rattled and drowsy, which. Fair, they’d been awake for five seconds. 

“With Jonny?” They glanced to where Ivy sat leaned up against the foot of the bed, still sleeping. “I wanted to make sure he wasn’t dead or anything.”

“No, he’s not dead, um…” Lyf squirmed in their seat. “I can leave if you want to talk to him?”

“If you’d be so kind?”

They stood up, swaying slightly on their feet and nudged Ivy awake. Lyf helped her to her feet, and with that they both walked past Ashes to leave the room. Ashes took the chair Lyf had been sitting in before and nudged Jonny’s arm. It took a couple of tries before he finally began to stir. He squinted up at the ceiling for a moment before shifting his gaze to Ashes.

“What the hell happened?” he croaked.

Ashes snorted quietly. “Wow, you sound like shit.”

“I can hear that. What… where are we?”

“Spare room. Ivy and Lyf took you here last night after you got…”

“Stabbed.” Jonny deadpanned. “You can say it, I got stabbed.”

“Kind of? We’re still working out the logistics of it all but the good news is you don’t need surgery.” Ashes cleared their throat. “I guess I’m in here to check on your symptoms. I didn’t go to medical school, but Marius doesn’t seem any better equipped to handle this.”

Jonny sat up with an enormous amount of effort. “My head hurts. It feels like I have a lead weight in my chest instead of a heart. And I’m thirsty.”

“Well, the last one is easily fixed. I’ll get you some water in a bit.”

He didn’t make a sarcastic comment like they were expecting him to. Instead, he looked down at his hands. “How badly do you think I messed things up.”

“I don’t think _you_ messed things up, I think she did.”

“But I stole the dagger. I didn’t back away when the red flags started flashing. I could have prevented this somehow.”

They lean back in their seat. “Maybe you could have, but we’re here now, so instead of playing the blame game with yourself let’s try to move forward.”

Jonny made a sour face. “It just seems like it’s bad to have one of the team ‘marked’ or whatever.”

“Maybe. But I think we can still do it.”

They sat in silence for a while, after that. Ashes figured Jonny would like the company after the ordeal he’d gone through. They could get the water later.

* * *

Ashes found Tim sitting alone in the living room, the heels of his palms pressed against his eyes. They sat down on the couch with him, still far enough to prevent him from getting startled.

“How’re you doing?” Ashes asked.

He looked up. They weren’t expecting that. “I just figured I hadn’t checked in on you in a while. How’re you doing?”

Tim didn’t seem entirely sold on this. “The last time we talked we were fighting about how healthily I was dealing with things.”

“Yea, we were.” Ashes took a deep breath. “I still think you didn’t make a very smart move, but I also think that I probably could’ve, like, approached it better. Tensions are high, and neither of us needed me to get confrontational.”

Tim considered this for a while, then moved to close the distance between himself and Ashes and leaned against their side. They let him rest his head on their shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“I’m sorry too.”

“Do you think any of us are going to feel normal again?”

Ashes thought back to their stilted conversation with the cashier. They still weren’t sure how much of it had been more than regular, awkward small talk, but they knew there was _something_ different about it. Somewhere in the other room, they could hear dishes clinking as Marius put them away and Brian’s voice talking in words they couldn’t quite make out.

“I don’t know, Tim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, sorry, that took a month but the other chapters should be coming out much faster. I just find Ashes a bit difficult to write, even though I love them.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some HEAVY disassociation, memory problems, emotional manipulation and some other eldritch shit.

There was something wrong with Lyfrassir's blood.

They hadn't figured out exactly what it was quite yet, but they knew, knew, knew. It felt thick and heavy in their veins, slow enough to kill were it not for the fact that they were fairly sure an outside force was actively keeping them alive. Their heart couldn't beat hard enough for it to properly flow, so Lyfrassir just sat there with their own blood stagnating and festering away inside them.

Lyfrassir also… Heard things now. They'd heard things before, but now it was much more frequent like there was always someone standing right behind them. It said very bad things, usually. It alternated between telling Lyfrassir that everyone hated them, that everyone was useless and they'd be better without them, and that they were and had always been alone. The speed at which it switched lies was disorienting, to the point that sometimes they wondered which ones were lies at all. They couldn't all be false, right?

Right.

Right.

_Right._

* * *

A crack like lightning rang through their dreams, and they awoke with a snap. Lyf was still in the room with Jonny, but when they looked up an unfamiliar figure stood in the door. It had hair flickering and glowing white hot, shifting in hue like a fire. 

“How long will you be able to keep this up?” It asked. “How many more miracles do you think you have up your sleeve before you fall to the altar like the sacrifice you are?”

“Huh?” Lyf was frozen beneath its gaze, burning into their soul. 

“With Jonny?” Ashes asked. They had transformed in a matter of seconds, their hair returning to its normal color and form instead of the roiling inferno. “I wanted to make sure he wasn’t dead or anything.”

“No, he’s not dead, um…” They needed to get out of here. Splash water on their face, punch a wall, do _something._ “I can leave if you want to talk to him?”

“If you’d be so kind?”

Lyf wasted no time getting Ivy and leaving. Once they left Ivy in the kitchen with Marius, they went outside. They tried not to scream.

* * *

_Where does it end?_

Their hands shook. Something burned at the back of their throat.

_Where does it begin? The stars? The sky? Your own bones?_

Their fingers arched as they grip the floor as if to dig in their fingers. It was, of course, solid.

_You aren't me. No matter what you tell me, you. Aren't. Me._

A baby cried somewhere, a woman screamed somewhere, a dog barked somewhere.

_Oh, but I am. I'm everything. The only important thing is that you are also me._

Was it real? 

_I don’t understand._

They were somewhere else now, gripping tight to the side of the waste bin so that their knuckles paled.

_It hurts so much._

The burning in their throat rose as they vomited. It felt like fire or razors.

_Can’t you make it stop?_

Someone held the blade level with their eye, the tip hovering centimeters away. That one wasn’t real, they knew it wasn’t real.

_I don’t know._

At least not anymore.

_I’m sorry._

A baby cried, a woman screamed, a dog barked, they sobbed.

_I’m sorry._

* * *

Several days passed. It’s all quiet, too quiet, and they felt too heavy. They tried not to jump at any little noise, but most of the time they tragically failed. Marius must have noticed, because they ended up laying on the floor of the living room, taking deep, even breaths with their eyes closed like he instructed them to.

“How are you feeling?” Marius asked.

Heavy. Threadbare. “Not great,” they responded.

“Yea. It'll get better soon, okay? We can figure things out once it's all over.” They could hear the smile in his voice, and it was comforting.

A period that lasted somewhere between one minute and thirty eons passed before he spoke again. “We should do this outside sometime,” Marius said. “Maybe under some actual stars.”

They didn't tell Marius that when they opened their eyes they could see whole star systems dying in the ceiling of the living room. “That would be nice.”

Laying on the floor, they slowly loop through everyone’s faces, one by one. It’s a precaution they’ve been going through for the past few days to make sure they don’t forget what anyone looks like. Lyfrassir was going to win this fight.

They bolted upright as a gruesome memory suddenly flashed behind their eyelids. What. What was _that?_ Their hands shook at the recollection of wrapping them around someone’s neck and _squeezing_ until he stopped breathing, and they could see his face so fucking clearly but they couldn’t remember his name.

“Lyfrassir?” Marius said softly. “What’s wrong?”

“Give me a second,” they choked out. This was important, they had to figure this out. They _knew_ who this was. They had told him they loved him, sat next to him for a whole night as shared pain wracked their body. 

“Lyfrassir.”

“J-J…” They couldn't remember his name! Lyf had killed him, could recall the visceral horror that had grasped them as they could only watch the thing controlling their body squeeze the life from him. 

They suddenly felt like they were going to vomit and ran from the room, ignoring the shouts of Marius behind them. Lyf was going to go to the forest, where no one could hear them scream, and _carve_ this thing out of their god damn body-

They were stopped as they physically ran into someone. They stumbled back a few steps to see Brian watching them coldly and _Jonny_. Just like that the missing connection in their brain was filled, the brief dissonance as their memory reoriented itself white hot and crackling in their ears like dead leaves or static.

“You're not dead,” Lyf said weakly.

“No, I'm not. Who the hell told you I was?”

It was so strange. Just a few moments ago they could recall the feeling of his breath petering out beneath their hands like it had just happened, and now the sensation was so fake. Like the memory of a bad movie. “Where were you?”

“On a physical therapy walk.”

“It's not physical therapy, Jonny,” Brian said.

“What else would you call it? You literally took me on a walk to make sure that I won't collapse of heart failure or something.”

Lyfrassir numbly followed Jonny and Brian while they bickered, just to keep them in their line of sight. Object permanence seemed to be an odd kind of problem for them now.

* * *

It hurt so much to think. Each original thought was a nail through their skull, but for obvious reasons they couldn’t exactly stop doing that. So, to cut back on the concentration they had to expend for movement, they mostly sat in the corner of the bedroom, catatonic as they rested their head against the wall. Someone entered quietly, closing the door behind them in a manner to not alert anyone else. Or maybe not to frighten Lyfrassir. They have been very jumpy.

“Hello, Lyfrassir,” the kind one said. They frowned. They couldn't remember his name, but they remember sitting on the floor with him and staring at the rug. They’ve learned that is more important. He knelt down in front of them so they were at eye level.

“Hi,” they reply. He gave them a moment to continue, then spoke himself when it was clear they weren't going to.

“I know that you can take down Carmilla,” he said in a low voice. “You're probably the only one who can.”

 _Yesyesyes! Just give into it and you can do anything you want._ Lyfrassir shook their head to chase away the voice, but the kind one seemed to take it as their response.

 _“Please,_ we can't keep doing this. She's going to hurt us all very soon, and you don't want that, right?”

Their heart stuttered to a stop. “No, I-I don't, I really don't.” They were all Lyfrassir's final threads, the gossamer thin strands they were using to hang on and fight against this thing inside them. 

“Then can you do this for us?”

Lyfrassir hesitated. “I… want to. I don’t know if I can without…” A million bad possibilities crossed their mind, and they can’t manage to say any of them.

“Hey, I get it.”

He touched their arm, and it felt like a borrowed set of clothes. They wanted to cry so badly, but they couldn't show weakness right now. Instead, they struggle for his name. “B-Brian?” They have to at least tell him one thing.

“Yes?”

They smiled. They got it right. “I-” 

Unfortunately, the words _love you_ didn't follow. The feeling of vertigo overwhelmed them, like being held above a cliff. There were no whispers this time, no words. Just the threat of being dropped.

So they laughed. He- _Brian_ -pulled back.

“Think about it,” Brian said before standing and leaving the room as they quietly giggled.

Hah. Another thing to think about.


	16. Chapter 16

The thing about Carmilla is that a lot of people spent a lot of time over analyzing her motivations.

Which wasn't to say that she was an impulse driven creature. Carmilla had goals and plans, places she wanted to get to, but sometimes she merely wanted to see the end results because they might be interesting to observe.

For instance, the group that she had gotten tangled up in her web. It was a rather grand experiment she had in store, though the setup was becoming rather tedious and elaborate. She’d managed to get the jump on Jonny with the Devil’s Brand, but now the rest of them would be on high alert around her. Well, not that they weren’t before. She’d get them in the end, she needed more subjects to compare to the control group. Her biggest problem was whether the experiment would turn out in the end.

The Devil’s Brand was complex. If Carmilla focused just slightly she could feel the trail leading to Jonny and the slight pulse along with his heartbeat. She had tested it a few times, sapping little bits of energy at a time. Only enough that it would likely make him tired. Nothing as big as the stunt she had pulled when she first marked him with it. Though a large part of that had also been his body acclimating. She’d have to make some tweaks to the bond to twist it the way she wanted.

Carmilla knew that they were planning on taking her down, that they had been the whole time. It was only natural. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t have the means or the tools to accomplish it. They were also meddling in affairs too complex for them to handle. Carmilla could tell by the way that reality frayed at the edges of their movements in a nigh imperceptible way. If most of Carmilla’s thousands of years of existence had not been dedicated to observation, she would have missed it. She suspected they were dabbling in such matters to try and find an escape from her. 

It didn't matter that much. Those forces took a much slower approach to their victims, wearing them down like a river running over stones. They were only forcing themself further into the corner. They would either go in too deep and come back to Carmilla for help, stop on their own, or get consumed. And, as useful as they were, there were other ways to get tools. She suspected Tim might fall victim to it. He had never been quite so stable after that time she had killed him. 

Other than him, she figured the cards could fall in any direction. Carmilla would just have to wait and see. She’d been alive for a thousand years, and she’ll be alive for a thousand more. The only question was who else would be with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're gettin' close to the end, friends. Idk if this chapter works with the rest of the tone but fuck it i had fun.

**Author's Note:**

> The demon summoning words were just copy paste of some sections of lorem ipsum so don't read too far into that. Anyways, this is gonna be a long form fic but I'm not done with my outline so idk how many chapters will be. I always feel like my first chapters are weak because I focus so much on setting up the concept, but it's fine, i'm not a professional writer.


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